Journey To Babel: An Epilogue
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: Set directly after the end of 'Journey to Babel'. McCoy continues to take care of Kirk, who's wound is more serious than he initially thought. I am new to Star Trek and this is my first ever story for the show! UPDATE: Although I originally labelled this as complete as I considered it to be a oneshot the plot bunnies won't leave me alone on this one. NOW A FULL LENGTH STORY!
1. Chapter 1

There was no sense of either night or day in space. The ship manufactured its own false time frame to prove conducive to both sleep and wakefulness. That evening both Captain Kirk and Sarek remained confined to the sickbay. Spock had been discharged a few hours previously, having been certified fit by McCoy, and had resumed command of the ship from Scotty. The lights had been dimmed in the sickbay, and McCoy was examining his only two patients for the final time before bed.

"You're still in pain aren't you?" He asked as he examined the Captain's wound. It was bad. He'd remained stable for the past few hours, but the jolting of the ship during the earlier attack had put his body under a tremendous amount of strain. Any further exertion could cause him to start bleeding again and so the doctor had ordered complete bedrest for the foreseeable future. He couldn't move from his current position, not even to go to the toilet. The Captain had been critically wounded, and the hours which had passed since had done nothing to reduce the threat to his life.

Kirk was sweating. He'd had enough painkillers to have completely incapacitated him under normal circumstances, but it still hadn't been enough. He was cold – so cold that it made him shiver – but his face and forehead were boiling hot, his cheeks deeply flushed. There was still no sign of infection setting in, but his entire chest ached. He nodded slowly.

"I'm going to give you something more for the pain Jim." McCoy told him as he completed his examination. "Something slightly stronger. For some reason none of the usual painkillers seem to be working, but it's a bad wound."

The Captain reached out a hand to grab McCoy by the arm as to turned to go. The doctor sighed. He'd known Kirk a long time – long enough for him to realise what was coming.

"No, I don't want anymore drugs Bones." He told him weakly.

McCoy turned back to look at him. He noticed the Captain's flushed cheeks, but the rest of his complexion was alarmingly pale.

"I've stitched you up as best I can Jim," he told him, "but the cut is deep, it penetrates right through to the chest cavity. By rights you should have died, it was only by sheer luck that you weren't killed, and there is only so much I can do. The rest is going to take time – and your cooperation." He placed significant emphasis on this final statement – Captain Kirk wasn't known for his cooperation with the doctor when it came to matters concerning his own health.

"If I might be so bold as to intervene Captain," Sarek interrupted them, "it is completely illogical to refuse medicine if you are in pain."

Kirk craned his neck a little to look at the man as best he could. McCoy had given Spock's father a sedative to help him sleep, but the drugs were taking slightly longer to work on his Vulcan physicality, and his exceptional hearing had meant that he hadn't been able to help but overhear their conversation, despite his drowsy state.

"Spock has always told me that pain is all in the mind." Kirk forced a smile.

"As Vulcan's we are able to supress the body's response to pain temporarily, but not the pain itself." Sarek explained. "It makes no sense to suffer unnecessarily. As the ship's Captain you are important, you are needed. Your priority should be to get better and return to duty as soon as possible, any other course of action seems completely illogical."

"Well I can hardly argue with that." Kirk said, looking from Sarek to McCoy with raised eyebrows. He couldn't help but feel as though he'd been well and truly put in his place. He noticed the doctor look gratefully around at Sarek as he released his grip on his arm. The Vulcan wouldn't comprehend the significance of the gesture. Kirk had always doubted Spock's claim that his race were completely devoid of emotion, but over time they had certainly lost their ability to understand it.

McCoy might have charge of the sickbay but, as the ship's Captain, he didn't officially have the authority to override Kirk's decision – even if he was risking his own health by refusing medical intervention. Not that he hadn't been forced to disobey his Captain's orders in the past – but Sarek's words seemed to have spared him having to commit yet another act of mutiny.

"I'll prepare a hypospray." He told Kirk as he left the room.

The Captain lay back in the bed, looking up at the ceiling, until his friend returned. He was incredibly tired, but his chest was so sore and felt heavy – it made breathing very uncomfortable. His vision blurred for just a second and he had to blink hard until everything came back into focus. His head was swimming, and the air in the sickbay felt unusually thick – but he realised that his damaged lung would have had a lot to do with his compromised breathing.

It didn't take McCoy long to return with the hypospray.

"I'm going to give you Thyoroxine Jim." He explained as he prepared the Captain's arm for the injection. "It's a very powerful painkiller with strong sedative properties. It's a controlled drug we very rarely use here."

"I don't want to be knocked out Bones." Kirk said. "I need to remain functional, in case anything happens with the ship."

"You're not going anywhere Jim. If you move anymore you could die," McCoy told him, as he quickly injected the Captain with the spray before he had chance to protest further, "and a fat lot of use you'd be to the ship then, a corpse laid out in the morgue!" He exclaimed.

The drug didn't take long to take effect. Kirk was already tired, and the rapid pain relief coupled with the sedative properties of the drug meant that he fell asleep quite quickly. McCoy stayed with him until he finally lost consciousness, monitoring his breathing and making sure that he really was asleep before he left to get some rest himself. Spock's father was still awake long after Kirk had fallen asleep.

It was a few hours later when Kirk next awoke. He was finding it much harder breathe now than he had when he'd fallen asleep. There was a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest which was worse when he tried to breathe in, and he didn't feel able to fully inflate his lungs. His chest was tight – rattling on intake, and as he exhaled he was wheezing badly. He opened his mouth to try and say something, but couldn't get any words out – instead the act only made him cough, which caused more pain to surge through his chest. Kirk groaned.

He looked around as best he could to see if he could see any sign of McCoy, but the doctor didn't appear to be anywhere nearby. He then remembered that he wasn't on his own – Sarek was in the bed opposite.

"Sarek…" He tried harder to force the words which had previously evaded him, and was relieved when he was able to produce something vaguely resembling speech. "Sarek… are you… awake?" He gasped.

"Yes Captain." The Vulcan responded, to Kirk's surprise – he hadn't expected him to be awake at this time of night, especially after the sedative McCoy had given him.

"Where's… McCoy?" He asked him.

"The doctor went to get some rest, but said he wouldn't be far away if he was needed." Sarek explained. "Are you alright Captain?"

"No… Sarek… I can't… breathe…" Kirk told him. This caused the Vulcan to sit a little further up in bed – this way he could hear Kirk's laboured breathing and how much he was clearly struggling. He heard his noisy gasps, and the wheeze when he exhaled.

"You're breathing doesn't sound good Captain." He observed, but became immediately alarmed when he received no response from Kirk.

"Doctor! Doctor!" Sarek shouted. "We need you in here, quickly!"

"What is it?" McCoy asked as he came hurrying in, evidently thinking that there was something wrong with the Vulcan. He approached Sarek's bed first, failing to notice Kirk, but Spock's father immediately shook his head and pointed towards the Captain, indicating that it was he who needed help, not himself.

"He says he can't breathe." He told the doctor, and as he turned to look at his friend McCoy could tell that there was evidently something seriously wrong. Now that he had stopped to listen he could hear Kirk's laboured breathing – the choking gasps and severe wheezing.

"I'm… suffocating… Bones." Kirk told him as McCoy approached him gently, he was sweating profusely and the medic could see the panic in his friend's eyes. Not being able to breathe was quite possibly one of the most frightening experiences anyone could go through. He already suspected he knew what was wrong with the ship's Captain without even examining him, and a pneumothorax – if that was indeed what this was – was incredibly painful. He'd heard some patients compare the experience to drowning.

"It's alright Jim." He tried to reassure him, holding out a hand to silence his words. "Don't talk now."

Kirk looked at him – deep into his eyes, as they met each other's gaze. McCoy knew that the ship's Captain trusted him, they'd known each other a long time, and were close friends as well as colleagues. But being a doctor never made it easier to see your friends in pain.

Kirk tried to relax back on the bed as best he could, but it wasn't easy. He was trying not to panic, he was trying to remain calm, but he knew that he was dying. If McCoy couldn't do something to ease his breathing soon he was going to pass out, and the thought that he might not wake up again terrified him. He remained silent as the doctor ran his scanner over his body – which in itself wasn't a good sign. All of his energy and focus was being put into trying to breathe.

It didn't take long for the scanner to confirm McCoy's suspicions.

"What's… the… matter?" Kirk, struggling with the words, asked – seeing the concerned look on the doctor's face. His breathing was already getting worse, and his vision was becoming hazy around the edges.

"I thought I told you not to talk!" McCoy said, fixing him with a stern look. This silenced the Captain again immediately – his last question seemed to have drained him – but he was still communicating with his friend with his eyes. McCoy bent down over him and gently managed to turn him over onto his side slightly. This caused Kirk to visibly flinch, and he gasped with the pain the motion caused to surge through his chest – but in that moment the doctor was grateful that he couldn't see the expression on his face. He couldn't conceal his shock, and mild horror, as he observed the Captain's blood soaked sheets.

The wound had obviously started to bleed again at some point during the night. They had no way of knowing for how long he had been losing blood but it was the pressure of the fluid which had caused his lung to collapse.

Easing his friend gently back down onto the bed, he sighed.

"It's as I suspected Jim," McCoy explained, "and I did fear this might happen. It's one of the reasons I didn't want you moving around too much. I'm afraid your lung has collapsed again. I need to try and re-inflate it."

He turned urgently to address Nurse Chapel who'd suddenly appeared by his side.

"Nurse, could you prepare me the implements needed for a chest tube, and a respirator?" He asked her.

"I'm on it doctor!" She nodded. As head nurse she understood the urgency of the situation, and immediately hurried from the room. Meanwhile McCoy turned back to look at Kirk, who in his fear reached out and grabbed him by the hand, squeezing it hard.

"Jim, there is no easy or painless way of doing this." He told him gently, still keeping hold of his friend's hand, whilst with his other free one already pulling at the Captain's loose white t-shirt and blue hospital robe to expose his chest and abdomen. "I need to make a small incision along the length of your ribs and insert a tiny tube into your chest cavity in order to reinflate your lung." He explained.

"This… is going… to… hurt… isn't it… Bones?" He asked him, his voice now barely a whisper.

"Yes Jim, I'm afraid it is." McCoy responded, squeezing his hand hard in response to Kirk's own vice-like grip. At that moment Nurse Chapel reappeared at the doctor's side, handing him the respirator mask. McCoy gently released his friend's hand and placed it back down on the bed beside him before placing the mask over the Captain's face, and setting it to maximum airflow.

"This will help you breathe Jim." He told him. Kirk was then vaguely aware as the doctor stepped away from his side. It unnerved him slightly, that his friend was no longer in eyeshot, but he could still sense his presence in the room, and his eyes slowly started to close as he felt the highly-oxygenated air being forced into his lungs.

He could get a sense of the urgency of the situation. He wasn't sure of what was going on but he was vaguely aware of the frantic buzz of activity going on around him – everything seemed to be happening in slow motion though.

Suddenly McCoy reappeared at his side. He was wearing a surgical mask and even in his current condition Kirk wondered at how strange he looked. The doctor hadn't had to perform an old-fashioned operation in a very long time.

"There's a very sharp pinch coming now Jim." He explained to him, holding the scalpel just out of eye shot of his friend, not wanting to alarm him. "Just work with me though. Stay as relaxed as possible. It'll be over soon." He smiled.

Kirk felt the sharp blade penetrate his side and gasped, trying hard not to flinch away or arch his back off the bed with the pain. He moaned as he felt McCoy slicing through his flesh, but was vaguely aware of the doctor talking him through the procedure as best he could. It was a massive relief when he finally felt his friend slide the tube into place.

His side throbbed badly, but his breathing became easier almost immediately. McCoy smiled as he heard the air which had been trapped in the Captain's chest cavity slowly escape through the tiny tube, and his lung began to reinflate. He watched the rise and fall of his friend's chest until his breathing became deeper and less laboured. He then fixed the tube in place with a couple of sutures and a sterile dressing.

"That's the worst of it over now Jim." He reassured him gently as he stood back, wiping the blood from his hands on a towel Nurse Chapel handed him. "You can relax for the moment."

Kirk looked up at him, a slight smile curling the corners of his blue lips as he visibly tried to do as the doctor instructed. He grimaced as his side started to sting viciously. He was still sweating profusely but some normal colour seemed to be returning to his face.

"So much for... I'll be out in two days." He teased - his voice still muffled behind the respirator mask.

"It's worse than I thought Jim." McCoy explained. "You're bleeding again. I need to try and redress the wound, stop the bleeding, and then you're going to need a blood transfusion to replace the blood you've lost. You're going to be here a while I'm afraid."

"It's good to see you looking a bit better though Captain." Sarek told him. "You seem to have given everyone here quite a scare."

"Thank you Sarek." Kirk responded, as McCoy injected him with another hypospray, and he wondered what this one was for. He couldn't crane his neck to look at Spock's father, and his voice was hoarse and still somewhat weak. His speech was restricted by the tightness in his chest but he knew that the Vulcan, with his exceptional senses, would still be able to hear him. He then turned to look up at McCoy, his smile widening slightly as their eyes met.

"Thank you too, my friend." He said as he reached out a hand towards the doctor. McCoy took it and squeezed it hard. He smiled back at him.

"I've still got work to do Jim." He reminded him. "We need to stop the bleeding."

"Do what you... need to do... Bones." Kirk nodded. His eyes were growing heavy again now and we're already beginning to close. The look McCoy gave him suggested that his sudden bout of fatigue wasn't entirely unexpected, and Kirk suspected that the injection the doctor had just given him had probably been some sort of sedative.

"Just rest now Jim." McCoy told him, laying his free hand on his shoulder to steady him. "I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you."

Kirk did his best to try and convey him a look of total trust - the highest compliment he was able to pay his friend in that moment - before finally drifting back off to sleep. With McCoy taking care of him Kirk knew that he would feel much better when he next woke up.


	2. Chapter 2

McCoy was in his office when Spock paid a visit to sickbay the next morning. The doctor looked exhausted - there were dark, heavy rings around his eyes - but he greeted the Vulcan in his usual way as he got up stiffly from his desk.

"You know I told you to rest Spock!" He told him. The Vulcan still looked, to him, to be suffering from the ill effects of the blood transfusion. He hadn't reacted well to the loss of the green bodily fluid he called blood. Physically McCoy had declared him fit, but that was only because as the evening had worn on it had become increasingly impossible to keep him confined to his bed. McCoy thought he still looked a little unsteady on his feet and he was evidently tired - something about the way he held himself told him so.

"How are you feeling this morning?" He asked him.

"Fine, thank you doctor." Spock responded in his usual unaffected way. "I am perfectly fine. I merely wished to enquire as to the condition of the Captain."

McCoy sighed. Kirk's condition was not good. He'd required further surgery to stop the bleeding into his chest cavity and the doctor had stayed close by his friend's side for the remainder of the evening, monitoring his condition closely. Upon measuring his blood levels they'd determined that he needed a full blood transfusion, which he was receiving now, but McCoy had kept him sedated since the operation to repair his back and damaged lung to try and enforce some rest and they couldn't know the real nature of his condition until he woke up. He was on a powerful cocktail of anti-biotics, painkillers and sedatives to keep him as comfortable as possible, as well as steroids to reduce the inflammation in his lungs and medication to control his blood pressure and minimise the risk of further internal bleeding. His breathing had been severely compromised, which was currently the greatest cause of concern for McCoy, but supplemental oxygen was continuing to keep him stable for now.

"I'm afraid Jim's a very sick man Spock." He told him, watching the confused expression morph over the Vulcan's face. When he'd last seen his Captain his condition had been a serious but stable one - no amount of logical thought could have predicated what was going to happen to him.

"What happened?" Spock asked, and if McCoy didn't know any better he would have thought that the Vulcan even sounded concerned.

"He suffered a collapsed lung in the night." He explained. "I had to operate to reinflate it and stop the bleeding into his chest. It would appear that the shaking he sustained during the attack on the ship yesterday resulted in a weakness which caused him to start bleeding again. He may well need further surgery to help improve his breathing, but I'll know more when he wakes up."

"Is he up to receiving visitors doctor?" Spock enquired.

"I'm afraid he's very weak Spock." McCoy shook his head. "I'd prefer to restrict contact with the Captain to just Nurse Chapel and myself for the next few hours. He's still sedated at the moment, and we're giving him a blood transfusion, but when he wakes up rest will be critical to his recovery. The temptation for him to start asking about the ship would be just too great if he saw you at the moment." He explained.

Spock nodded - he understood. Jim's love for his ship and loyalty to his crew were strong - he was quite prepared to believe that he would risk his life if either were threatened - and even if they were not his sense of duty as Captain would keep him from resting.

"I'll inform the crew of the Captain's condition, and your recommendations doctor. I'll endeavour to impress upon them that they avoid the sickbay today unless absolutely necessary, thank you." Spock said, before turning to go. McCoy knew it was too much to hope that he intended to return to his quarters to rest.

"Spock do you wish to see your father whilst you're here?" He asked him. Spock halted in his tracks.

"Why would I want to do that doctor?" He frowned, seemingly perplexed by the notion. "There is no logical reason to do so. I trust all is well with him. If it were not you would have told me so."

McCoy smiled. Sarek's condition was indeed improving. Considering the complexity of the surgery and the fact that his heart had even stopped on the table, part way through the procedure, he was in excellent health. He was now refusing all pain medication, insisting that he was able to keep it under control himself, his heart was already stronger than McCoy suspected it had been in years, and apart from being evidently a little tired, nobody would have been able to tell that he had once suffered with a life threatening heart condition unless they were already privy to that information. Amanda had stayed by her husbands side right up until McCoy had been forced to ask her to leave the night before, upon which time she had returned to her quarters, but had returned first thing that morning, before the breakfast had been delivered to sickbay. It seemed there could be no keeping her away from Sarek.

"I'll say something for the Vulcan stubbornness Mr Spock." He chuckled, unable to deny any of the other man's observations. "Considering he had life saving complex heart surgery less than twenty-four hours ago he's doing remarkably well. He's awake, he's alert, he's growing in strength by the hour - I'd go so far as to say that his recovery is nothing short of miraculous."

"I don't believe in miracles doctor, you know that." Spock replied. "The belief in so called divine intervention is illogical."

"Illogical or not I would start to believe in it if I were you Spock." McCoy sighed, somewhat sadly - he couldn't deny that his heart was heavy and his thoughts troubled. He realised that he was doing a pretty poor job of keeping the concern out of his face. "If not for your father's sake then for the Captain's. Jim could sure do with one himself right now."

"As much as it pains me to admit this doctor," The Vulcan turned to address him from his current position in the now open doorway, "I prefer to place my trust in the skill and steady hand of a good surgeon, not in conjecture and subjective superstition."

This prompted a small smile from McCoy. He may have been completely exhausted, with little prospect of getting any rest anytime soon. His head throbbed faintly behind his eyes, which were dry and heavy, and itched badly. He massaged the sore and stiff muscles in his neck and shoulders, boring the tips of his fingers in deep where he could feel the tight knots, but something about the Vulcan's statement tickled him - he had to stifle a small chuckle. It sounded suspiciously like Spock had just paid him a compliment.

"Do I take it Mr Spock that you are complimenting me on my medical skills?" He asked him in mock surprise. Spock raised an eyebrow in his direction.

"I was merely stating a fact doctor." He shook his head, his response characteristically non-committal. "You will undoubtedly place what significance on my words as you will. I was merely remarking on the fact that giving any standing to such notions as the existence of miracles is illogical."

The laugh McCoy had been fighting to stifle finally escaped him - a deep throaty sound - as the Vulcan, evidently unimpressed by the doctor's display of humour, turned to leave. He hesitated for a moment, his position frozen in the doorway as he appeared to have second thoughts. He then turned back to face McCoy, clearing his throat uncertainly.

"Doctor, will you tell the captain that I came by to see him?" He asked. "And keep me informed of any changes to his condition?"

McCoy held the Vulcan's gaze a little too long. He frowned. He found it quite puzzling that a man who supposedly found emotion illogical and repulsive, and on the one hand refused to visit with his seriously sick father, could on the other show such concern for his friend. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Mr Spock was half human however, and therefore, as Vulcan as he appeared to be, and as much as he wanted to be so, there was still a part of him which was susceptible to experiencing the full range of human emotion. It was no secret that Spock's greatest desire was that he be seen as a pure-blooded Vulcan, despite an amicable relationship with his mother he was deeply ashamed of his half human lineage, and so would not want to be seen as making an overly emotional gesture in front of his father.

McCoy didn't say anything. He just smiled and nodded. This seemed to satisfy Spock, who, without reaction, finally turned to leave. The sickbay doors closed with a quiet hiss behind him.

The doctor returned to his desk, where he knew an inventory of reports were waiting for his signature. The critical injuring of a Starfleet captain, and a Vulcan Ambassador taken seriously ill created a hell of a lot of paper work. He was just about to sit back down when an alarm went off in the other room and Amanda called out to him.

"Doctor McCoy!" She shouted. "The Captain's awake!"

The alarm alone would have been enough to summon him and he hurried in, silencing the switch above the Captain's bed as he approached. Amanda was standing over Kirk, looking down and smiling in the most maternal and affectionate way. McCoy observed a pain in her eyes in that moment - it was the pain of a woman who'd been born to be a mother, whose soul calling in life had been to love and nurture a child. It must have been heartbreaking for her, he thought, to have raised a son who could never say 'I love you', or even bring himself to give her a hug. She was evidently very much in love with Sarek, but what sort of a relationship could the two of them have? He wondered, to be married to a man who could only ever respond to you with logic, and did not know what it was to feel love, pain, loss or simply to bask in the joy of another persons company. He was numb to the normal range of healthy human emotion.

She smiled at him, and he returned the gesture, nodding that he had the situation under control now, and she returned to sit at her husbands bedside. He'd given Sarek a sedative earlier that morning, and although not unconscious he currently resided blissfully on the periphery of sleep and wakefulness.

He ran his scanner over the captain's body. His heartrate was up, indicating that he was in some distress, but most concerning of all was that so was his blood pressure. If he didn't do something to bring it down soon it could cause him to start to bleed again, but he'd already pumped the man's body full of enough drugs to cause some serious damage of their own if not closely monitored, he couldn't give him anything else for it for at least another couple of hours. The K3 indicator showed him to be in a significant amount of pain, and it was climbing. Kirk groaned, a small involuntary sob escaping him, and McCoy quickly prepared a hypospray and injected it into the more fleshy upper part of his arm.

He was using an opium derivative, far more potent than morphine. It was incredible the advances medical science had made. They'd managed to filter out its addictive properties years ago, whilst also increasing its pain killing effects. It no longer produced the brain fog it had been known for years before, and was the perfect companion drug for the Thyoroxine McCoy had continued to administer to him post-surgery, which could only be given in very small therapeutic amounts every few hours. It took a few minutes after it entered his blood stream for it to start to take effect, but finally Jim started to visibly relax. He sunk back down into the bed, and slowly opened his eyes. They looked heavy, and swollen with the effects of the anaesthetic.

"How do you feel Jim?" He asked his patient, leaning further over him with a smile.

Kirk grimaced - evidently he was still suffering despite the opium now in his system, but McCoy knew that it could take a few more minutes before he began to feel the benefit of its full effect. Kirk screwed his eyes tightly shut before blinking a few times to try and bring the world into focus, and the doctor placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder to let him know that he was there and that he was safe, whilst he adjusted to the light and sounds of the sickbay. There was normally a certain degree of disorientation experienced by patients coming round after surgery, but McCoy had kept him sedated significantly longer than he normally would have. It seemed to be taking him a while to come round, and he kept a very careful eye on his vital signs.

Kirk gasped.

"There's a pain... in my chest... Bones." He told him. He seemed a little alarmed. The pain was worse then it had been when he'd fallen asleep, and he reached out with one slightly trembling hand for McCoy, who took it and gave it a gentle squeeze. He took a careful look at the IV in the back of his hand. He'd nearly finished his second unit of blood and it would soon be time to hook him up to a third.

"I know, I've just given you something for that, it'll start to take effect soon." He did his best to reassure him. He seemed lucid enough but he couldn't be entirely sure of how much information his friend was capable of processing yet.

"What happened?" Kirk asked.

"You've had major surgery Jim." McCoy explained gently. "Your lung collapsed. I had to operate to stop the bleeding into your chest cavity. Exactly what do you remember about last night?" He asked.

"Everything..." He responded weakly, reaching up instinctively to remove the mask from his face, but he was intercepted by the doctor, who grabbed the other hand gently and lowered it back down onto the bed beside him.

"No, don't take the mask off." He instructed him. "You're hypoxic. It's there to help you breathe." The closer the doctor now looked at Jim's lips, and the cuticles of his nails he could see that they were still a pale shade of blue, and the monitors above his bed also confirmed that his oxygen saturation levels were low.

"That's hard enough... even with... the mask on." Kirk gasped, and to McCoy's concern he could hear a slight wheeze and the rattle in the man's chest when he spoke.

"Jim, are you still having trouble breathing?" He frowned.

Kirk nodded, and the doctor ran his scanner over his friend's body again, this time paying closer attention to the area around his wounded chest. It showed that his injured lung was still only functioning at reduced capacity. He watched the laboured rise and fall of his chest as he fought and struggled for every breath.

"Jim, I may have to operate again if your breathing doesn't improve." He told him. "Do you have any other symptoms?"

Kirk shook his head.

"I'm just... very... very... tired." He told him. His voice slurred slightly, and the doctor noticed that his eyes were already beginning to close again.

"Then rest now." He smiled. "The pain killer I gave you should start to take effect soon."

"Don't... go... Bones..." Kirk gasped in a state of panic, and his eyes flew open as he made another grab for the doctor's hand. His fingers tightened around McCoy's uniform shirt, and he immediately felt his friend's warm hands on his shoulders as he lowered him back down onto the bed again. The cocktail of drugs in his system were clouding his mind. His obvious disorientation was making him act out irrationally.

"It's alright, I'm not going anywhere Jim." McCoy tried to reassure him, keeping him firmly pinned to the bed until he started to relax again. Kirk's blood pressure had spiked and he was seriously concerned about the risk of internal bleeding. He needed to try and get him to calm down. "I'm going to stay with you until you fall asleep again, and then I'm going to run some more tests." He explained. He altered the setting slightly on his friend's respirator mask to help him breathe a little easier.

"I hoped I might have felt better this morning." Kirk murmured.

"Jim, you were stabbed in the chest." The surgeon exclaimed. He couldn't deny that he too hadn't hoped for the same the previous evening, but having now operated on the captain and having seen the state of his chest cavity he was also aware of the reality of the situation. The blade had done some significant internal damage. It wasn't at all surprising that he still felt as rough as he did. "You sustained a series life threatening injury. Your lung was punctured." He explained. "This is more than just a flesh wound. You were never going to make a quick recovery from this, but by not returning to your quarters yesterday like you assured me you would you sustained further trauma which has likely set your recovery back days, if not weeks. You know I would never have agreed to let you leave sickbay if I thought for a single moment that you were going to do what you did."

"What else... was I supposed... to do Bones?" Kirk asked him weakly. "The ship was under attack... my second officer... was indisposed. I needed Scotty in engineering... I couldn't just leave the bridge... unmanned..."

"What you needed to do was rest!" McCoy told him. "That's why, this time, you don't get to set so much as a foot outside sickbay until I'm sure that you're well enough!"

"Bones... I don't mind... admitting... that I'm... scared..." He wheezed. "I've... never felt... like this... before."

McCoy observed Kirk's complexion. Alongside the faint cyanotic tinting to his lips, his complexion was a ghostly shade of white, apart from the deep rosey colouring to his cheeks. The screen above his bed showed that his temperature was raised, and the surgeon resolved to run a full blood screening as soon as he was able to check for any sign of infection.

"Jim, I'm going to level with you here." He said, folding his arms seriously as he looked down at him, and Kirk could tell that he had slipped into full 'medical mode'. He knew that there was little point in arguing with him once he'd firmly established that he was now speaking as a doctor rather than as a friend. Leonard McCoy was a good, kind and gentle man - a real Southern gentleman who knew his job and did it well. Kirk couldn't ask for a truer or more loyal friend, but as a doctor he didn't pussy-foot around the truth, and he certainly didn't take any nonsense, not even from his captain.

"As Chief Medical Officer aboard this Starship I have seen you ill, injured, in pain, and feverish to the point of delirium." He said. "I have also seen you scared before, and I know that doesn't come easily, but you have every reason to feel so now. You have been critically injured." He explained, impressing the seriousness of his condition on him.

He noticed as he spoke that Kirk was starting to sweat again. Tiny droplets of perspiration were glistening against his upper lip and forehead, and running down the sides of his face and the back of his neck. His vital signs were also becoming increasingly unstable. His oxygen saturation levels had started to drop slightly, his blood pressure too was also dropping, and his heartrate was climbing. The only comfort McCoy could take from the readings was that his K3 pain levels were by now also beginning to decrease to a much more manageable level.

Kirk coughed and then suddenly started to gasp. Breathing was evidently becoming even more of a strain. The doctor watched the rise and fall of his chest, noticing as it became increasingly more erratic. He was having to work hard to draw air in and expel it from his injured lungs. He was already exhausted and the sheer effort of breathing was tiring him out even faster. McCoy was worried about how weak he appeared.

"It's... getting... harder... to breathe... again... Bones. Is that... normal?" He asked.

McCoy shook his head.

"No, if the operation was successful you should be starting to feel a little better by now." He sighed! and frowned.

If Kirk was still finding breathing difficult it was a sign that something was still seriously wrong internally. It was possible that he had started to bleed again, or that any residual blood which had remained in his chest cavity post-surgery had started to clot. On the other hand it could also be a sign of developing infection. He ran his small hand-held scanner over Kirk's body once again, but appeared unhappy with the seemingly insufficient data.

"I'll be back in a moment Jim." He told him, before hurrying from the room.

Whilst he was gone Amanda returned to stand at the captain's bedside. She didn't say anything, aware that if she did then the man might feel compelled to respond, and she understood the importance that he conserve his breath. She smiled down at him though, and Kirk found her presence comforting. Evidently she wanted him to know that he wasn't on his own, and she cupped his warm cheek gently and brushed a stray strand of hair away from his face in a way that reminded him of his own mother. He opened his mouth to say something to her, fearing, from somewhere deep within the recesses of his fevered mind, that it would be rude not to, but she was quick to silence him.

"Shhh." She soothed. "Don't talk now. Save your breath for breathing."

Kirk smiled, and nodded weakly, relaxing back into the bio-bed.

When McCoy returned she once again retreated back to Sarek's bedside, but smiled warmly at the doctor as their eyes met, who responded with a small smile of his own. He was grateful for the way she seemed to be keeping an eye on the injured captain, who happened to notice that his friend now held a stethoscope in his hands.

"Well... it's been a long time since... I saw one of those." He remarked weakly.

"A throwback to my younger days." McCoy chuckled. "I only really kept it for sentimental reasons and it was positively primeval by modern standards even then." He said, looking down at it. "Computers and scanners are all very well and good, but sometimes I prefer good old fashioned doctoring. I like to go by the observations of my own eyes and ears. I want to hear _how_ you breathe Jim." He told him, gently slipping his hand beneath his friend's hospital gown and placing the device to his warm chest. He instructed him to take a few deep breaths, which he did so as best he could - but they were still shallow and somewhat laboured - nowhere near as deep as McCoy would have ideally liked them to have been.

He listened carefully to his breathing, to the sound of his racing heart and heaving lungs. When he'd completed his examination he stepped back, a deeply troubled expression upon his face.

"How am I... doing Bones?" Kirk asked him with a wheeze.

"I'm afraid I can only operate Jim." He concluded gravely, putting the stethoscope down. "You're still retaining a large amount of fluid around your lungs."

He took in his friend's appearance, his ragged breathing, and the laboured movements of his chest. He took another look at the monitor above his bed and considered his options for a moment. He then took another hypospray, eyeing the drug in his hands closely and checking the dose before injecting it into Kirk.

Kirk grimaced and rubbed his arm. He was never particularly happy about hyposprays. They always seemed to hurt him so much more than they did anyone else, but he tolerated them, and for the most part put up with the pain. His resistance to their sting always seemed somewhat dented by any pre-existing pain however, often making him a challenging patient who was known for resisting treatment when he needed it.

"What was... that?" He asked him.

"Tri-Ox compound." McCoy explained. "Your blood oxygen levels are very low Jim. I'll operate this afternoon, but the way you are at the moment you could be too weak for surgery within a couple of hours. The Tri-Ox should make you feel a little more comfortable in the short term, and buy us a bit more time." He explained.

"Bones... I want... you to know... that I... trust your... judgement." Kirk gasped. "Whatever happens... I want... no I need you... to know... that I couldn't trust anyone... more than I... trust you." He said.

"I'll fix this Jim." McCoy implored him. It was obvious to anyone who saw him how weak the captain was, but to him his words sounded suspiciously like those of someone who'd resigned themselves to the possibility of death. To Kirk it might have felt that way when he was having to struggle for every precious breath, but clinically he was nowhere near as bad as that yet. "I promise." He told him. "It'll just take a little longer than either of us initially thought."

"Do yourself... a favour... Bones..." Kirk smiled up at his friend. "Don't make any... promises... you can't guarantee... to keep. For your... own sake. I don't need... you to make... me any... promises. I know that you're... a good surgeon. That's all... I need... to know..."

The doctor smiled meekly. "Just try to get some rest now Jim." He said, placing a gentle and reassuring hand on his shoulder. He adjusted the setting on the respirator mask one last time to increase the oxygen flow further and checked his vital signs. Despite his apparent breathlessness his oxygen saturation levels were already slightly improved, his heartrate, although still too fast, was steady, and his blood pressure had stabilised, much to McCoy's relief. The Tri-Ox compound was doing its job, and had been quick to take effect. The extra oxygen he'd just given him also already seemed to be helping him breathe a little easier, reducing the tightness in his chest.

"Spock came by this morning." He told him as Kirk's eyes started to close again, turning the conversation to more casual matters now that he was assured he'd done everything physically he could for him for now. In the urgency which had ensued after the captain had regained consciousness he'd completely forgotten his earlier promise to the Vulcan. Kirk's eyes cracked open again at the mention of his first officer's name.

"How's he... doing today?" He asked, evidently concerned.

"Well," McCoy considered thoughtfully, "he's up and around as though yesterday didn't happen." He told him. "He claims he's fine of course, but he still looks a little tired to me. I'd be much happier if he hadn't already insisted on returning to his duty. Ideally he could do with another day's rest."

Kirk chuckled mildly at this information, and grimaced at the pain this simple gesture caused him. McCoy's hand tightened around his shoulder. He watched as he fought to maintain control of himself until the pain had passed, as he tried to ride with the pain rather than fight it, aware that any sudden movement would only make it worse.

"Well Bones... that's our... Mr Spock for you..." He said as soon as he was able to speak again without it causing him too much discomfort. McCoy was still concerned but he too failed to stifle a small laugh. The captain was indeed right on this score.

"Well, I suppose I'd have a lot more to worry about if he wasn't being his usual annoying and uncooperative self." He conceded. "He asked to see you but I didn't think it advisable at the moment."

Kirk seemed to consider this for a moment, but finally nodded.

"To be honest Bones... I don't really feel up to receiving visitors... at the moment." He confessed. "Not even... Spock... I'm afraid."

McCoy noticed that Kirk's speech seemed to have improved as his oxygen saturation continued to rise. It was an encouraging sign. Jim was strong, and he wasn't yet so significantly weakened that the drugs he'd given him had proved ineffective. He smiled at these small improvements he observed.

"How's... Sarek?" He then asked him.

McCoy was just about to respond when to his surprise the Vulcan spoke for himself. Jim wasn't able to sit up and so couldn't see him but McCoy turned to look at him as he spoke. His instinct as a doctor was to check on his other patient now that he was fully awake, and he quickly made his way over to check his vital signs before returning to the captain's bedside. He still wasn't entirely sure exactly what was normal for a Vulcan and what was not, but he seemed alright and his complexion was healthy.

He sounded understandably tired, but his voice was strong, and his conviction even stronger. There was a mildly anxious expression upon Amanda's face, and it was clear that she was still deeply concerned for her husband, but he appeared quite unfazed by his illness, and exhibited no outward signs of the pain he must have been in.

"I am doing fine captain, thank you." He told him. His voice was rich, deep and warm. McCoy wasn't sure whether it was the cocktail of drugs he had him on, but it was unnerving how relaxed he appeared. The doctor had never understood, nor would he ever get used to the Vulcan predilection towards logic. It wasn't natural to not feel emotion. He found their lack of desire for love, hope, happiness, sadness, anger, humour, despair and all other feelings which drove an individual's motives in life and made each day worth living unnerving.

"Your concern is commendable, but I think you'd do better to focus on yourself now. It is you who are seriously ill." He continued.

"Sarek's right Jim." McCoy cut in. "I really think you aught to try and get some rest now. You've got quite a cocktail of drugs in your system. I'm surprised they're not making you feel more drowsy to be honest."

"But... they are." Kirk smiled, as he closed his eyes. It was evident that he was trying to fight the exhaustion, that he didn't want to fall asleep, but he couldn't fight it forever.

"Rest Jim." McCoy impressed upon him. He could see how incredibly tired he was by how suddenly he'd lost his battle to keep his eyes open. "It really is the best medicine." He assured, rubbing his arm gently, and checking on his IV one last time. "I promise you I'm not going anywhere."


	3. Chapter 3

To McCoy's evident disgruntlement he found himself being summoned to a crisis meeting in the briefing room later that morning. He wasn't very happy about being ordered away from the sickbay, especially at such a critical time, when Kirk was still so evidently unwell. McCoy was very worried about him, he wasn't responding as well to the treatment as he would have liked, and his breathing had been getting progressively worse over the past couple of hours. Sedating him had ensured that he would remain calm, and it had made it much easier to stabilise him. All they could do for the moment was to try to keep him as comfortable as possible.

Sedating him had also meant that they could act quickly in the event of an emergency. He was still able to breathe for himself but whilst he was unconscious McCoy had made the decision to put him on partial life support to help reduce the strain on his injured lungs – but they would have to take him off it again before the surgery.

He'd been in a state of severe anxiety before the sedative had finally taken effect. This hadn't been surprising considering the screen above his bed had shown that his oxygen saturation levels were still on the low side, and despite the tri-ox compound in his system they had continued to slowly drop. With this degree of oxygen deprivation he would certainly have been finding it harder to breathe, and he'd probably have been feeling lightheaded and disorientated. Scans had shown that the lack of oxygen to his brain was causing some cognitive impairment – not enough to cause undue alarm, or to pose a risk of serious long-term damage, but certainly enough to make him appear not quite his usual self. The doctor had paid close attention to the man's lips and the cuticles of his nails during his pre-surgical examination of his patient – noticing that their previous pale blue colour was now a muted purple. His cells were being starved. A combination of blood loss, the cocktail of medication he was on, and the pain had resulted in a state of confusion which had further compounded what was quite an understandable anxiety. Jim was used to being in control, taking charge of situations which most would rather avoid. He frequently put his own life at risk in the line of duty, and was used to suppressing the natural human instincts associated with this. The interruption of any autonomic nervous system response however – in particular anything effecting the ability to breathe and the regulation of heartrate and blood pressure – could be expected to be met with its own very particular and helpless brand of primeval fear, over which the patient had little control.

The one positive was that the respirator had significantly eased his laboured breathing, and the tri-ox compound had slowed the rate of cell damage, which would have otherwise been caused by the oxygen deprivation, but this was not a cure and could only buy them more time. With every hour that passed them by Jim was getting weaker. He needed to operate as soon as possible.

The stab wound had been serious – as bad as anything McCoy had been confronted with during the course of his career – but he'd got him into surgery within minutes of the call from Spock to join him on Deck 5. He'd managed to stop the initial bleed. If Jim had remained in a horizontal position over the next couple of days, and given his body time to heal he would have probably got away with a few days in sickbay, a course of pain medication and anti-biotics, and a week's bed rest. McCoy had warned him that getting up could cause him to start to bleed again, but it wasn't in the man's nature to indifferently stand back and watch someone die, especially if he could do something about it – even if it meant risking his own life in the process. It was what made him such a good Starfleet captain, but it made him an even better friend.

To a certain extent McCoy could understand him putting Sarek's life above his own. He would have probably done the same in his position, as much as he wanted to berate Jim for it – but neither of them could allow Spock to commit an act which he would likely then regret for the rest of his life. Such a weight of responsibility would probably have destroyed him over time. The first part of their plan had been executed without a hitch – Spock had seemed initially suspicious but his concerns had been easily allayed. If the doctor had known that Kirk wasn't going to report to his quarters as soon as they were clear of the bridge he would have dragged him back to the sickbay there and then. As it turned out the shaking he'd sustained during the attack on the ship had caused a weakness to the damaged tissue which had resulted in a massive haemorrhage worse than the original injury. This made him vulnerable to further bleeding, and although he was confident that he'd left Kirk in very capable hands with Nurse Chapel McCoy still felt uneasy being away from the sickbay for too long.

His role aboard the Enterprise for the duration of its voyage was as a healer. His reason for being there was to tend to the health of the crew and not to debate politics or involve himself in the technicalities of running the ship. That particular responsibility fell to Jim as the captain, and Spock and Scotty as his second and third in command. It wouldn't normally be expected of him to attend meetings during a state of medical emergency, and McCoy had therefore surmised that what was to be discussed probably had something to do with Jim. He trusted that the Vulcan wouldn't have summoned him away unless it was important. Spock was fully aware of how unwell Kirk was, and he also knew that the Chief Medical Officer's place during a medical emergency involving the captain's life was at his side – whether that be heading up a trauma team in surgery, or formulating and overseeing a relevant treatment plan. In the eyes of Starfleet the captain was the most important person on any ship, and their health therefore of the upmost priority – although Kirk would have argued to the contrary given the opportunity.

"What's all this about Spock?" He asked, once all the relevant heads of department had assembled and were gathered around the table. He locked eyes with Scotty, who was seated opposite him, and noticed the worried look on the engineer's face. He realised that Spock, although likely efficient at relaying the details of the captain's condition to the crew, had probably done little to allay their fears. "I take it this has got something to do with the captain?" He pressed, turning back to the Vulcan.

The doctor may not have liked many of the duties it was his job to perform as the Chief Medical Officer – including having to certify anyone unfit for duty. It didn't happen very often, but when it was called for he reluctantly accepted the responsibility, because someone had to do it, and if he didn't no one else would. His first priority though was his patients, and he would do what he had to do to tick all the official boxes – so long as it didn't take too long.

Spock looked at him, his expression set like stone, betraying no sign of the tornado of emotion he was fighting to supress. There was a brief glimmer of pain in his dark eyes that was only there for a moment – but McCoy noticed it.

He nodded.

"I have called this meeting in light of the captain's current condition. There are certain practicalities which need to be discussed." He explained. "As everyone here ort to be aware whenever a Starship's second in command is required to take over from his captain for an extended period of time they are required to observe certain protocols. The extension of command needs to be made official. In order to do this I first need to establish how long the captain is likely to be out of action." He told them.

His lips were pursed in a thin line, his shoulders set stiff, and his hands were clasped together on the table before him. His thumbs danced around each other thoughtfully. His demeanour was characteristically cool, his voice was even and controlled, and there was no outward sign that he felt in any way effected by the current situation – although McCoy noticed that he looked a few shades paler than usual. He was aloof at the best of times, and notoriously difficult to read, but those who knew him well also knew that a lot more went on beneath the surface of this façade than he ever let show.

"Doctor, can you give me any idea of how long it will be before the captain is well enough to resume his command?" He asked him.

"I honestly couldn't say Spock." McCoy responded honestly. He truthfully didn't have an answer to the question. "The bleeding last night was bad." He told them all. "It's left him significantly weakened, but as I told you this morning we've given him a transfusion and I will know more after I've operated again this afternoon. All I can tell you at this moment in time is that his condition is a stable one, but he's still critical." He explained.

Spock sighed, and for the first time he actually looked ill at ease.

"It goes against the grain of my convictions as a Vulcan doctor." He said, clearly feeling the strain of responsibility. It wasn't that he was unprepared for the burden of command – if there was anyone else more suited to the position of captain than Jim it was the Enterprise's science officer – but no one could deny that the circumstances in which he now found himself in command were stressful. There was definitely an internal conflict going on between his mind, full of the Vulcan logic, and his heart, brimming with human emotion. He was himself in a state of physical weakness, his own blood count still hadn't yet returned to normal after the transfusion he'd given his father the day before, and as a result he was naturally feeling more vulnerable than usual. McCoy could tell that it was a strain for him to try and contain his concern. "But in the absence of anything concrete can you at least give me your best professional estimation?" He asked of him.

McCoy looked at him – somewhat incredulous.

"Are you actually asking me to _guess_ Spock?" He frowned, hardly daring to believe what he'd just heard.

Spock looked back at him, seeming to consider this. His faltering uncertainty deeply concerned McCoy. There was no doubt in the doctor's mind that – weakened or not – he was still in a much better position to take on the responsibility of command than any other member of the crew, but there was more to assessing someone's condition than whether or not they were fit to command a Starship. He seemed uncommonly distracted – as though there was something preying very heavily upon his mind.

"Spock?" McCoy pressed him for a response.

"Starfleet have been in touch with me." He finally revealed to them all – and the reason for his preoccupied state soon became clear. "It seems they've already heard about what happened to Jim." He told them.

"Now how could they have possibly found that out so quickly?" McCoy's frown deepened.

"I don't know." Spock shook his head. "Maybe one of the ambassadors let something slip, you know how notoriously loose lipped some of them are known to be." He suggested. "But that is perhaps beside the point now doctor. They want to know how long it is likely to take the captain to recover in light of the severity of the attack. I would prefer you not to have to make a guess on the subject, but under the circumstances I would appreciate your professional input."

McCoy never thought he'd see the day when Spock, of all people, would ask him for advice of any kind - let alone on a matter he could not be assured to give a correct and accurate response to. The Vulcan worked with what was logical – that which could be substantiated with facts, as did all Vulcans – but at the same time he realised that the ship's science officer now found himself backed into a corner. There was of course no way now that they could keep the situation quiet, and deal with it amongst themselves.

McCoy realised that he had to tread very carefully with this – if he overestimated how long it might take Jim to recover he ran the risk of Starfleet suspending his commission on medical grounds. If this were to happen then it would mean him having to submit to a full physical examination before his captaincy could be restored to him. The doctor realised that he wouldn't be permitted to remain on the Enterprise for the duration of his recovery, and therefore he wouldn't be able to carry on treating him. He'd probably be placed in a Starfleet hospital, under the care of strangers who, although well meaning, were unfamiliar with him and his medical history - and McCoy also knew that if this were to happen there was a chance they might never see him again. Not all Starfleet captains who it was determined couldn't be treated on board by their ship's medical team were returned to their original ship upon recovering. He wanted to spare his friend the stress and humiliation of this if he could, but the maximum amount of sick leave permitted after an incident like this without an external review was a month.

"Well," he sighed, thinking hard for a moment, "as you yourself have been so quick to point out in the past Mr Spock guess work, whether or not backed up by fact, is not a science. There are no guarantees. All I can tell you with any degree of certainty at the moment is that he's likely looking at weeks rather than days." He advised – it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

"Any idea how many?" Spock pressed him.

"Well, it's so hard to tell." McCoy considered. "The wound is severe, and it has to be taken into account that every human body has a different rate of recovery. Now, Jim doesn't actually get sick very often." He told them. "His immune system is remarkably well developed, but when he does his body isn't always particularly receptive to treatment, and historically he does seem to take longer to recover than most. Now, keeping this in mind, I could tell you that, for example, he might need to spend two weeks in sickbay recovering, but that wouldn't necessarily mean that he'd be well enough to return to work at the end of it… on the other hand it's possible that he could be up and around in a matter of days depending on how well his body responds to the surgery." He concluded. "Personally though I'd say that he'll need a minimum of a week's bedrest. He can expect to experience some breathlessness whilst his lung recovers, and he'll probably find that he tires more easily than usual, so any form of physical exertion will be out of the question. If he does as he should, and judging by his track record in such matters I highly doubt he'll make things easy, I would expect him to be up and around again within two to three weeks, but I'd be inclined to give him the full month just to be on the safe side."

"The captain's not going to like that doctor." Scotty chuckled lightly in his rich Scottish accent. This prompted a furious frown from McCoy, which silenced him immediately.

"What he is and isn't going to like is not my concern." He told him. "The blade missed his heart by a centimetre. By rights he should be dead."

He caught himself before he could continue along this track any further, and his expression softened. The anger seemed to melt away from his face as he fought to contain the uncharacteristic outburst. There was no malicious intent meant by it – they all knew that under normal circumstances McCoy was mild mannered, calm under pressure, and slow to anger. His short fuse in this case was born of his concern for the captain, but that was no excuse for taking his frustrations out on his friends – who were all themselves also worried. He sucked in a deep, calming breath, and sighed wearily. "I'm not a miracle worker Scotty, just an old country doctor." He said.

"Doctor McCoy?" Nurse Chapel's voice sounded over the intercom. McCoy pressed the button to the speaker in front of him.

"McCoy here…" He responded.

"The captain is waiting for you in pre-op." She informed him.

"Thank you Christine, I'm on my way." He told her. "McCoy out." He hit the switch to cut the conversation. He then sat for a moment, seemingly deep in thought, before turning back to look at Spock.

"Spock." He addressed him as he got steadily to his feet. "Come see me in sickbay later and we can discuss this further then. I'll sign whatever you need me to." He said, realising that his friend really didn't like what was happening anymore than he did, but if either of them stood any chance of helping Jim they needed to play this by the book. "Right now, I have an operation to perform."

Spock nodded. Scotty still looked slightly worried. Everyone else around the table started getting to their feet, sensing that the meeting was now over, and prepared to return to their various departments. McCoy waited patiently for them all to file out before following, but Spock called him back just before the doors closed behind him.

"Doctor," He said as he followed him out, "I ask this now not as Jim's science officer, but as his friend. How bad is he?"

McCoy looked at him, trying to read his expression – but his face was as straight and unreadable as ever. Sometimes trying to have a conversation with a Vulcan – or even a half Vulcan for that matter – was like trying to communicate with someone who spoke another language. As human beings communication was about more than just words, body language and facial expression was important in creating some sort of context to a conversation. When this was lacking social ques were often misread or missed all together – this was what it was like talking to Spock a lot of the time. His was a different language in kind – a different set of emotional responses. He didn't always respond as one might expect, but in this case instinct told McCoy that there was genuine intent behind his question – a genuine sense of concern.

"Spock," He eyed him gravely, "I really hoped you wouldn't ask me that."

"Why?" Spock frowned, not seeing any obvious problem with his question. He'd done what the doctor had so frequently criticised him for not doing – he'd shown concern – and he'd meant it.

"Because you are the one person on this ship I cannot lie to…" He told him. McCoy knew that this sounded odd – it even sounded strange to his own ears as he said it, but he couldn't deny that it was true. Spock's eyebrows raised – evidently he couldn't understand why the doctor should even want to deceive him. The truth was that it was easier to offer reassurance to the likes of Scotty. Jim was not only their friend, he was also their captain, and McCoy didn't want to run the risk of instigating panic and disharmony amongst the crew. Of course there were protocols in place for such eventualities as they now found themselves in - that's what this meeting had all been about, so that Spock's authority could be made official and therefore unquestionable to the likes of those who might choose to challenge it. But Jim was also a personal friend to many, they would only worry more if they knew how sick he really was, and they couldn't do anything about it.

Human beings were hopeful by their very nature, they needed a certain amount of it to cling onto in times of great difficulty. It was what gave them strength to carry on, and therefore they didn't question it. Spock didn't need to live in hope, he lived in resignation of the fact that what would be would be, and this brought with it its own unique brand of peace – it may not have been a peace most would understand, but it was a sense of peace none the less, and it worked well for him and his kind. It also meant however that he wasn't afraid to ask the questions many didn't want to know the honest answers to.

"I'm afraid it's as bad as it can probably get." McCoy finally admitted to him.

"I see." Spock nodded, understanding the doctor's meaning. It wasn't very often that they saw eye to eye, but where Kirk was concerned it was obvious to them both that they were united by how worried they were about him.

"Good luck doctor." The Vulcan sighed. There was nothing else he could say on the matter - nothing meaningful either of them could add to the communication.

"I thought you didn't believe in luck?" The doctor raised an eyebrow.

"For Jim, I'm prepared to give it a go." Spock told him.

McCoy smiled slightly. Deep down, beneath his cool and indifferent exterior Spock was a good man at heart. His opinions, and how he chose to live his life may have been questionable to some. He may have given preference to logic over emotion - choosing to let his mind rule over his heart. That was quite possibly what made him so good at his job, and therefore such an invaluable resource to the Enterprise. Every so often however he let his human side peek through, and they would see some evidence of the love and compassion he had inherited from his mother. McCoy had noticed this on occasion, but would never let slip so much to Spock. If he knew he would probably never show a single spark of feeling towards anyone ever again.

...

"I've given him the sedative doctor." Nurse Chapel told him as he entered the sickbay a few minutes later, and made his way straight to the treatment room.

"Thank you Christine." McCoy nodded to her, taking in the man lying in the bed before him. The sedative hadn't been enough to completely knock him out, but he was in a state of semi-consciousness and therefore only partially aware of what was going on around him. He must have sensed the doctor enter however as the sound of his friend's voice seemed to prompt an immediate response.

"It feels as though there's something sitting on my chest." Kirk murmured. He didn't seem to be speaking to anyone in particular. He didn't open his eyes or look directly at McCoy, but it was evidently something he found alarming enough to make it known to anyone who would listen.

"It's alright Jim." He tried to reassure him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder as he approached. "Your lungs are just tired that's all. They're having to work much harder than usual. It's perfectly normal under the circumstances."

"Bones… my… my stomach hurts." Kirk struggled to speak through the mind-numbing effects of the sedative.

"Your stomach Jim?" McCoy frowned, watching as his friend nodded weakly in the affirmative. His eyes remained closed – he currently seemed to reside somewhere in the dimension between sleep and wakefulness. As the doctor leaned over him he could see just how incredibly pale was. His skin was as white as a sheet, and his face was contorted – his teeth clamped so tightly together to make his gums appear pale, although this could also have had something to do with the fact that the screen was now showing that his blood pressure had dropped since that morning.

McCoy pressed down gently on Jim's belly with the palm of his hand, prompting an immediate hiss of pain from the man, and his face contorted further into a grimace as he immediately tried to bat the doctor's hands away from his tender stomach.

"Sorry Jim." McCoy apologised. His expression was grave as he turned to Nurse Chapel beside him.

"Nurse, get me an abdominal scan whilst I scrub up please." He told her, gently pulling her aside so that Jim couldn't hear what was being said between them whilst he relayed the findings of his physical exam. "I don't want to open up the abdomen unless I absolutely have to," he explained, "but there is some slight rigidity upon palpation. I need to know if he's bleeding internally."

"Yes doctor." She nodded.

"Bones…" Kirk moaned, fidgeting uncomfortably in his bed, with one hand resting gently on his painful stomach. It was evident to them both as they stood there watching him for a moment that he was having trouble getting comfortable. The doctor half-smiled at Christine, patting her gently on the arm as she left to prepare the required hypo of anaesthetic and set up the equipment to get a scan of the captain's abdomen. He made his way back over to his friend's side.

"It's alright Jim." He told him, letting him know that he was there. "We're going to put you to sleep again soon. You'll feel a lot better when you wake up."

"You keep telling me that Bones." Jim mumbled. His voice was strained but there was the vague hint of a smile on his pale face, and McCoy could tell that he was speaking in jest – an attempt at sarcasm, which was lost in his weakened state. Jim's eyes had opened just a crack but the doctor doubted that he would be able to make out the very much through the gloom of the room – Christine had lowered the lights to try and make him a little more comfortable and help him to relax – but he forced himself to smile back despite the heaviness in his own heart.

"Jim." He said, leaning further over him and taking the respirator mask from where Christine had placed it on the table beside the biobed. He looked carefully at the small canisters she'd already connected up to the air filter, observing the labels on the vials of medication, and double checking the dosage of each. "I'm going to put the respirator back on you now." He explained, gently placing it to the man's face, and creating a seal over his mouth and nose. Jim didn't resist the mask, he seemed resigned to it - either that or he was just too weak and in too much pain to argue. "You're going to start feeling very tired quite quickly, so don't be alarmed." He told him. "Christine will be in to give you an injection in a minute."

McCoy stayed with him until she returned. As Kirk began to take a few unsteady gulps of air he watched him relax as the oxygen he breathed combined with the chemicals in the canisters connected to the respirator, creating an anaesthetic gas. He seemed unsettled at first, as though he could feel himself losing his grip on consciousness, and his immediate instinct seemed to be to fight against it. The injection Christine was preparing to give him was the final step in the anaesthetisation process, but mercifully the gas further incapacitated him enough to stop him reacting physically to his fear by lashing out. McCoy hoped that he was wrong, but all his instincts as an experienced surgeon were telling him that Jim was leaking blood into his abdomen from somewhere, and the last thing any of them needed now was him making any internal bleeding worse. He placed his hand back on his friend's shoulder – the gesture seemed to have calmed him before.

"It's alright Jim." He soothed.

He knew that Kirk wouldn't want the rest of his crew to see him in this condition. The male ego – especially that of a man who held charge over others – would not want to be seen as anything less than perfect, but it wasn't fallibility nor fear that made people weak, it was their unwillingness to face their fate when it was thrown at them, and find a way to overcome it. Fear in a situation like this was a perfectly natural and healthy response. It proved to them all that he was human.

He watched his breathing slow, and the laboured rise and fall of his chest become shallower as the combination of gases finally forced him to relax. He then replaced the canisters on the respirator with pure oxygen and when Christine returned, hypo in hand, injected him with the final dose of anaesthetic before he left her to monitor his condition and perform the requested abdominal scan, whilst he scrubbed up for the surgery.

"Doctor, I think you need to take a look at this." Nurse Chapel told him, a little while later, as she handed him the tricorder. She'd just finished scrubbing up herself and had joined the doctor in the operating theatre where two orderlies had recently delivered Jim. McCoy had been in the process of double checking the instruments laid out and took a look at the readings, his face grave. He sighed when he realised what they all pointed towards.

"There's a small tear to his spleen." He concluded. "It's not entirely surprising given that the stab wound was to his left lung. The blade might have grazed the organ as it went in, scraping but not puncturing the splenic capsule, or it could be the result of some blunt force trauma. I'll have to open up his abdomen once I've stopped the bleeding and drained the fluid from around his lungs. This is going to be more complicated than I thought." He sighed.

"Do you think you'll need to remove it doctor?" Christine asked him.

"I'll have to see how bad the bleeding is once I'm in there." McCoy explained. "At this moment in time the bleeding doesn't appear too bad, and it may be that I can repair the damage done if it isn't too extensive. I'd like to try and save the spleen if I can, but there's always a risk of it rupturing again. This is Jim's third surgery in less than twenty-four hours, and I just don't know how much more his body can take."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Spock was on the bridge. Kirk had been in surgery for two hours now, and still there'd been no word from either Nurse Chapel or McCoy. He'd kept the ship running normally in his usual efficient way, but those of the crew who worked closely with the Captain were struggling to keep their mind on their work, and the atmosphere on the bridge was particularly tense. Spock kept on feeling Uhura's eyes on him, making the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and Scotty had been comming him every twenty minutes for the past hour, wanting to know if he'd heard anything from sickbay yet. As he hadn't the constant interruptions from the Chief Engineer were becoming wearing. Regardless of his own personal feelings about his friend he had a job to do. They couldn't just leave the Enterprise suspended in space indefinitely – it made the ship too vulnerable to attack. He did his best to keep their focus on the job, by reminding them of the sacrifices the Captain had made for his ship and its crew. He tried to remind them that he would want them to continue on with their mission and therefore the best thing they could do was to keep things as normal as possible. He couldn't honestly deny the existence of the worry within his own heart, but he had a choice, he could either embrace it, as humans so often did, and let it overwhelm him, or choose to supress it – and worrying wasn't an efficient use of his energy.

Meanwhile in sickbay McCoy was in the process of closing Jim's chest incision. The first part of the surgery had taken longer than he's anticipated. There was a lot of internal inflammation and swelling and he'd needed to flush the cavity around his injured lung, and had double checked the repair he'd made the previous evening. To his relief there hadn't been any further bleeding, but it was the severity of the inflammation which was causing him additional pain and making it difficult for him to breathe. McCoy had asked Nurse Chapel to put in a request for IV anti-inflammatories to be brought up from the medical store.

Jim had to be re-draped before he could examine his abdomen. It was necessary for them to dispose of the first sterile field and replace the old drapes with new ones to prevent the spread of infection from one surgical site to another. Whilst Nurse Chapel was doing this McCoy took the opportunity to take another look at the results of Jim's abdominal scan. It showed a significant amount of inflammation around his spleen and the surrounding tissue, suggesting he'd sustained an injury to his stomach during his confrontation with the Andorian impostor. It showed a small tear to the splenic capsule, and a resulting slow leakage of blood into the space surrounding the organ. General stats taken showed that he had a slight fever, his white cell count was also raised – a sign of infection – and his blood pressure was low – a result of the internal bleeding.

McCoy sighed, stripping his bloody gloves off, and disposing of them in the nearest bio-hazard bin. He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn't understand how the abdominal trauma had previously been missed. It hadn't been flagged up during his initial examination – early tri-corder readings hadn't shown up anything to suggest that Jim had sustained anything further to the chest wound. Jim had sustained extensive bruising during the attack, along with a few superficial abrasions – in particular defence wounds to his arms and cuts to his torso – but the greatest cause of concern and therefore the biggest priority had been the penetrating injury to his back. It was possible that they'd missed something important in their haste to get him to the sickbay – where McCoy had been forced to perform emergency surgery – but he suspected it much more likely that Kirk had sustained further internal damage during the attack on the bridge. The rupture to his spleen was a relatively recent injury, and the blood loss he'd incurred as a result not serious enough to have been going on any longer than the past couple of hours – besides that Jim had only just started to complain of abdominal pain.

McCoy let his mind wander – his thoughts drifting back to the events of the day before. He was still secretly berating himself for letting Jim return to the bridge. Whilst it was true that Sarek hadn't stood a chance at life without the blood transfusion from Spock it was never acceptable, in his eyes, to allow the trade of one life for another. Any risk one person was willing to take to save the life of another had to be carefully considered, to make sure their life wouldn't be put at risk as a result. Jim's injuries had already been life threatening, he'd been vulnerable to massive spontaneous bleeding. In sickbay he could be closely monitored, and any treatment quickly administered. McCoy had been torn, but Spock was stubborn and he'd made it quite clear that he couldn't hand command over to Scotty under the circumstances. On the other hand it hadn't been part of the plan for Jim to remain on the bridge once Spock was clear, but the ship had been at risk and its crew in danger. McCoy had known that Jim's track record where matters concerning his health were concerned wasn't good. He would attend sickbay for painkillers to treat a simple headache, but neglect a case of the flu until it turned into raging double pneumonia, and it sometimes seemed as though the more serious the illness or injury the more he seemed to think he could simply push through the pain – McCoy was beginning to wish he'd paid closer attention to his instincts.

 _"Just take it easy Jim." McCoy advised as they made their way slowly from sickbay to the bridge. He'd given him some IV fluids and pumped him full of as many high strength painkillers as he'd deemed safe, but the man was evidently still uncomfortable. The drugs had numbed the pain in his chest until it was little more than a dull ache but little could be done for the thickness of the air in his lungs. His condition was unstable and McCoy knew that it wouldn't take much to cause him to start to bleed again. Jim was having trouble breathing, and it was becoming increasingly evident that he was a lot weaker than he'd initially made out – far too weak to be out of bed. He needed rest, and under normal circumstances he'd have kept him under enforced sedation to ensure that he received it. He was going against every instinct he had as both an experienced surgeon and Jim's friend, but these were unprecedented circumstances, a man's life was at stake – and not just any man, this was Spock's father. McCoy inwardly cursed the stubbornness of the Vulcan – if he would only hand over command to Scotty there would be no need for Jim to risk his life like this. As soon as the operation was over and Sarek as out of danger he resolved to go straight to his quarters with a full medical team and have the Captain brought straight back to sickbay._

 _Judging by the sound of his breathing he already suspected that he would probably require further surgery, but he would need more detailed chest imaging to be sure of how to proceed with his treatment._

 _"Jim, I'm concerned about your breathing." He frowned – compelled to raise his concerns. "It doesn't sound right. Do you have any tightness in your chest at all?" He asked him._

 _Kirk shook his head – but McCoy suspected that this was probably a lie. The Captain could feel his friend's eyes on him, and he knew that he was intentionally remaining close by. He found it reassuring. His legs felt like water and he realised that McCoy would have recognised how weak and exhausted he was. He was watching him intently, taking in his awkward gate, the way and speed at which he walked, and his rigid posture. He observed the pain on his face with every step he took and readied himself to steady him in the event that he stumbled or fell._

 _Beneath the fresh uniform shirt Nurse Chapel had fetched him from his quarters Kirk's chest was swathed in bandages. A few crew members – predominantly red shirts who worked in the lower recesses of the ship – smiled at him as he passed them and he forced himself to smile back at them. He was doing a pretty good job of keeping up the pretence of normality but he was evidently finding it a strain. They'd made it halfway up the corridor when his vision suddenly blurred and sharp pain surged through his chest. He swayed and immediately felt Bones' hand on the small of his back, steadying him, as he gasped and clutched at his painful side._

 _"You alright Jim?" McCoy asked him. Unable to form words in that moment Kirk simply nodded. Pale as he was, and the sweat dripping from him his struggle was evident. "You know I'm really not sure this is a good idea." He told him. Kirk's body wasn't responding well to the physical exertion, and he doubted he'd be able to keep going for much longer. "You're too weak Jim." He told him, but Kirk shook his head._

 _"I'm alright." The Captain assured him, rather unconvincingly. He finally managed to remove his hand from his injured chest as the pain receded. It took a few more seconds for him to regain control over his breathing though._

 _"Sarek needs that operation Bones." He huffed the words out of himself – his chest rattling slightly. "You said so yourself, this is the only way."_

 _McCoy didn't know how but somehow they made it to the elevator shaft – he hadn't thought Kirk would, half expecting him to collapse in the hallway, but his will was strong – stronger than his body. As they stepped inside he ran his hand-held scanner over his friend before flipping the switch for the bridge. Jim's face glistened with tiny beads of sweat and if his vitals had been less than ideal before they were now so low as to cause McCoy significant concern – although not yet life threatening. His blood pressure was on the low side, despite the physical exertion – so the doctor reasoned that at the very least he was likely to be experiencing some dizziness, and it was fair to assume that he'd stumbled before because he'd been light headed. His heartrate was already irregular, and his pulse was weak and thready. He realised that nothing he said would convince Jim to abandon his plan and return with him to the sickbay, and although he was putting his health on the line his life wasn't currently in enough immediate danger to override his authority as Captain – but if they were to succeed something had to be done to stabilise his condition otherwise the chances were he could lose consciousness on the bridge before they'd even had the chance to convince Spock to leave. Before the elevator could reach its final destination the doctor prepared another hypo-spray and injected it into Jim's arm._

 _He flinched, and McCoy suspected that he was probably beginning to bruise after the unprecedented amount of injections he'd received._

 _"What was that one for?" Kirk asked him, still somewhat breathlessly, and in that moment McCoy wished they were both back in sickbay so he could get a respirator mask on him – he hated to see him struggling and suffering like this, and he hated himself for agreeing to go along with such a ridiculous plan. If Spock was so cold hearted as to allow his own father to die then he didn't see why Jim should have to be the one to risk everything to try and rectify the situation he'd created – it wasn't fair. On the other hand he wasn't going to let Sarek die because of sheer Vulcan pig-headedness. He felt so torn._

 _"Something to help with your breathing Jim." He told him. "Obviously your current difficulty is being caused by the damage to your lung, so there is only so much I can do for now, but this should keep you going for just long enough to get Spock off the bridge. After that you must retire to your quarters – Jim I can't emphasize this enough. If you start to bleed again away from sickbay there is no guarantee I could get to you in time."_

 _He was doing everything he could to impress upon him the importance that he take his condition seriously – because he didn't entirely trust that he would. A serious internal bleed would constitute a medical emergency. In sickbay they had machines and scanners to monitor him and drugs to keep his condition stable – but without all that he was vulnerable._

 _"I haven't really certified you fit." He reminded him. "I'm only going along with this because without that operation Sarek will die, and as much as I don't agree with that pointy eared hobgoblin, or understand what motivates him half the time, I don't want him to have that on his conscience for the rest of his life. I'm very worried about you though Jim. What you are doing is placing a tremendous amount of strain on your heart and cardiovascular system, and your breathing has already been compromised."_

 _Kirk nodded. "I know Bones. I'll be sensible." He promised him. The truth was that he didn't have to be told how ill he was – he could feel it. He'd been relatively lucky in combat so far, and even luckier with his health. He was certainly no stranger to pain – but nothing he'd ever experienced in his life before had ever compared to this. It was strange – he'd thought the Andorian had simply landed a particularly heavy punch at first, winding him. It had taken him a few seconds to realise that he'd been stabbed, and even then he'd been surprised by how little it had hurt him initially._

 _Now that the adrenaline had worn off, even with the strong painkillers in his system, it was a very different story however. His body didn't feel like his own anymore._

 _He could feel Bones' eyes on him as the elevator reached the bridge. The door opened and he could see the figure of his Vulcan friend sitting in the Captain's chair. The doctor continued to watch him closely as he approached his First Officer, waking stiffly and evidently in pain. Spock wasn't stupid – very far from it. He could see that his Captain wasn't well. He could see that he clearly wasn't fit to be outside of sickbay. It was going to take everything Jim had left to give of himself – every last ounce of his strength – to convince his friend that he really was fit to resume his command. McCoy watched him struggle to maintain his façade, under the scrutiny of the Vulcan's suspicious gaze, until he himself felt compelled to intercede._

 _"I've certified him physically fit Mr Spock." He growled. "Now since I have an operation to perform and both of us are required…"_

 _"Get out of here Spock." Kirk told him, taking advantage of the doctor's support – although McCoy noticed that his smile was a little too broad to appear genuine. Spock still seemed unconvinced and it nearly gave the game away._

 _That he finally succeeded in convincing Spock to leave the bridge with the doctor was a true testament to the strength of his character. That he would eventually succumb to his injuries would prove a harsh reminder to him that he was still human – bringing him face to face with his own mortality._

"Doctor, I've finished with the Captain if you want to examine him." Nurse Chapel said, pulling McCoy from his reverie. He looked at her, and then across at the operating table. The raw, pink flesh of the incision in Jim's chest was now hidden by the fresh sterile drapes, his abdomen was now exposed. Unconscious he looked so vulnerable – no longer in control, but his life now in the hands of medical science. It was not how McCoy was used to seeing him, but as a doctor he knew that all humans were fragile no matter how strong they appeared to be.

They were all made up of the same blood, bone and soft tissue, and all too easily affected by illness or injury.

"Thank you nurse." He nodded his acknowledgement, putting down the tricorder. "I'd better scrub up again." He said, indicating his bare hands. "Then we'd better take a look at what's going on inside his abdomen. I just hope the damage isn't too extensive." He sighed, as he disappeared into the adjoining room.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Meanwhile Spock's concern was growing. He thought about everything the Captain had been through during the past twenty-four hours and marvelled at how something as seemingly fragile as the human body could withstand such a vicious assault. By rights the man ought to be dead – Spock had thought he was when he'd first found him.

He'd ordered a security team to deck five straight away, leaving control of the bridge in the very capable hands of Mr Sulu. There hadn't been enough time to inform Scotty of what had happened, and Spock recalled the full horror of the sight that had greeted him as soon as he'd arrived on the scene.

 _As the Vulcan rounded the corner he was momentarily halted by what he saw – two motionless figures, both unconscious, slumped on the floor. One was clearly the Andorian, the other that of the Captain._

 _"Jim!" He exclaimed – but his call received no response._

 _This scared him – the man looked dead._

 _Kirk was lying on his front, his body prone and still beneath the comm where he'd evidently collapsed before he'd had the chance to finish his message. A first glance of the scene hadn't flagged up any evidence of what may have happened, but it was a logical assumption to think that he may have succumb to a head injury._

 _As he cautiously approached it became apparent that the alien ambassador was out cold, a knife lay near his hand – fresh blood still glistening against a father vicious looking, serrated, curved blade. Spock kicked it away – as far away from the Andorian as he could – before turning his attention to the Captain._

 _Kirk's head was turned to the side, his mouth slightly open. The gold of his uniform shirt was stained crimson. He was making a horrible gurgling noise and it became immediately apparent that he'd been stabbed. Spock wondered what was keeping the security team – it felt like hours since the Captain had made his initial call to the bridge to let them know that he'd been attacked. He had to remind himself that time always seemed to slow down in a crisis, making everything seem as though it was taking much longer than it actually was. It had taken him a little over a minute to reach deck five – he estimated that security couldn't be that far behind._

 _As if to confirm the accuracy of his assessment he heard the sound of running feet approaching them from the opposite end of the corridor and looked up to see a team of four or five red shirts – armed with phasers – round the corner. He didn't waste any time in giving them their orders._

 _"Get him out of here." He barked, indicating the Andorian, and watched as the red shirts hauled the limp frame of the alien to his feet. "Take him to the brig." He told them. "I'll question him later."_

 _It all happened so quickly that some of the red shirts didn't even seem to notice the Captain, but a couple of them observed the injured man with concern._

 _"Is he…" One of them started to ask, but Spock shook his head as he removed his two fingers from Kirk's neck where he'd been checking his pulse._

 _"He's alive." He confirmed._

 _The man breathed a sigh of relief. He nodded, holding back from the rest of his unit for a moment before, with one final glance at Kirk, turning and following slowly along behind. Spock only hoped that he wouldn't say anything. News of what had happened to the Captain could quickly spread panic amongst the crew._

 _He looked to the unconscious and bleeding man at his feet, assessing his condition as best he could. He could tell just by looking at him that he'd been badly injured, and he placed a warm hand on his shoulder – in an uncharacteristically tender gesture – to let him know that someone was there. It was evident that any attempt to rouse him would be pointless – Spock could smell the blood as he reached up with his one remaining free hand to flick the switch above his head._

 _"Spock to sickbay." He spoke urgently into the comm. To his relief he didn't have to wait long to receive a response._

 _"McCoy here." The doctor responded. He sounded tired – his voice strained and gravely – and the Vulcan suspected that he probably hadn't yet given up trying to find an alternative blood donner for Sarek. He was a dedicated surgeon, nobody could question his compassion – if somewhat hidden behind a slightly frosty façade – nor his commitment to his job, but he did have a tendency to spread himself far too thinly sometimes._

 _Spock was the only Vulcan aboard the Enterprise. Even as a half Vulcan his blood was the closest match to his father's, if they could filter out the human element. It was only logical that he should be the donner. He was young, and healthy, and strong, and his body could tolerate the stimulant with little to no short-term effects… but even he didn't know where this new situation now left him. With the Captain now out of action that made him the acting Captain, and he knew his responsibility to Starfleet and the Enterprise outweighed any duty he had to do right by his father. Sarek would understand why – he would know that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few – but he wasn't so sure his mother would agree._

 _"This had better be important Spock." McCoy growled. Jim groaned, and instinctively Spock squeezed his shoulder gently, hoping it might bring him some comfort. He was still making a horrible gurgling noise, and from this close proximity Spock could hear the weak wheezing and the wet rattle in his chest as he breathed out. His lungs were filling with fluid, but he seemed to be regaining consciousness, and with that came an increased awareness of his pain._

 _"Doctor, we need you down on deck five immediately." He told him. "It's the Captain, he's been injured."_

 _"What happened Spock?" McCoy asked him urgently._

 _"I don't know the exact series of events doctor." He explained, and he could sense the man rolling his eyes in exasperation at the other end of the line. McCoy always hated the way the Vulcan talked – as though he was reciting from some scientific manual._

 _"He was attacked by one of the Andorian ambassadors." He told him. "He appears to have been stabbed."_

 _"What's his condition?" The doctor demanded to know – he remained calm and professional, but Spock detected a slight change to his tone upon finding out what had happened to Kirk. It became more urgent as he slipped into medical mode. Spock gently lifted the Captain's shirt with a forefinger to assess the extent of the injury beneath. The material was saturated with blood, and as he observed the deep puncture wound to the man's back he placed both hands over the cut, putting as much pressure as he could on the injury to try and stem the flow of the bleeding. He watched as the crimson liquid oozed out between his fingers, and ran down the backs of his hands. It soaked into the cuffs of his own shirt, ruining it immediately. Spock's anxiety grew. He looked around but realised that the corridor was uncommonly deserved – he realised they were on their own._

 _"He's bleeding badly, unconscious and unresponsive." He explained._

 _"Is he breathing?" McCoy asked._

 _"Yes." Spock responded. He was watching the laboured rise and fall of the man's chest. "But with significant difficulty." He told him. "Doctor, I think the blade might have punctured his lung. He's sustained a penetrating injury to his back, left hand side, about an inch wide, but I can't determine how deep."_

 _"Alright Spock, I'm on my way." He said. "Apply pressure to the wound, and keep it on until I get there. You need to try and control the bleeding."_

 _Now that Spock had removed the Captain's shirt from the wound and there was nothing to soak up the blood it pooled beneath his fingers. His hands were slick with it, and he really wished he had some gauze or bandages to soak it up with._

 _"McCoy out." The doctor officially signed off on the conversation, observing proper protocol, but Spock hardly noticed. He was busy trying to turn Kirk over onto his side. The man's chest bubbled and rattled painfully, and his breathing was getting louder. It was the sound of a man in respiratory distress._

 _"Jim?" The Vulcan asked his friend as he cradled him in his arms. He hauled him upright in his lap in a bid to try and prevent him drowning in his own blood, which now he'd moved him he observed had pooled in copious amounts beneath him. The sight of it, in such a huge quantity, filled the human half of his heart with dread whilst the dominant Vulcan part of him tried to remain calm so he could retain control of the situation. As he pulled him upright Jim coughed, and a small trickle of blood dribbled out from between his half open lips – confirmation of an internal bleed. Spock gently wiped the man's cheek on the cuff of his sleeve – the shirt he was wearing was by now so saturated with blood that a little more wouldn't make any difference. He looked at his friend's face – his skin clammy and white, his lips and eyelids tinged with blue. His hands weren't enough to staunch the flow of the bleeding, there wasn't enough friction for him to apply enough pressure, and they kept on slipping. The blood continued to pool beneath them and dribble out between the gaps in his fingers, no matter how tight a seal he tried to create. He was fighting a losing battle, and in the absence of any proper first aid kit he began to tug at a seam in the arm of his own, already ruined shirt until he created an opening big enough to tear a strip of fabric from it. He balled it up and pressed it to Jim's wound, watching as it turned purple as the colour of his rank mixed with crimson blood. It wasn't enough, and so he tore another length – placing it over the first. He tore off enough fabric, layering one strip over the top of another, until he'd created a compression pad thick enough that the blood no longer seeped through the top layer of fabric. Both the arms of his shirt were now missing up to his shoulders and a chunk of the torso was also gone, but Spock didn't care how he may appear to McCoy or anyone else when they arrived – he knew that the doctor would do the same under the circumstances. A shirt, after all, could be replaced – he had five others, neatly folded, in a drawer in his quarters. A life on the other hand, especially one as important as a Starfleet Captain, could not._

 _Jim moaned, and began to squirm in Spock's arms. His pain hit him like a frake train as consciousness slowly began to return to him – his lungs were screaming for air, they burned with every breath, and the throbbing in his back was indescribable._

 _Jim's arms flailed and as Spock reached out to grab them in a bid to stop him injuring himself further his friend's fingers skimmed his bare wrist – they were freezing cold. From somewhere deep within the recesses of his pain induced delirium Jim must have registered the contact he made with another because his blue eyes opened a crack and peered up at the Vulcan – recognition flashing across his face._

 _"Sp…sp…ock…" He stammered through the sticky liquid clogging his throat. He could taste blood._

 _"You mustn't talk Captain." His friend told him in his usual, unaffected way, but Kirk recognised the worry in his eyes, and it alarmed him. Why shouldn't he talk? He wondered. He wanted to tell Spock about his pain, but something about the way he was looking at him told him that he already knew._

 _"You've been badly wounded Jim." The Vulcan told him, and his friend's use of his abbreviated name concerned him even more – he so rarely addressed him by anything other than his rank. "Doctor McCoy is on his way." He explained. "Just try not to move. Try to relax."_

 _Kirk wanted to ask him what had happened, but he didn't have the breath, not the energy to talk. The fact that he was finding it so hard to breathe scared him, but he tried to do as Spock had instructed, and struggled to recall for himself what had brought him to this moment. It all came back to him in a rush. He'd been ambushed by the Andorian ambassador, they'd struggled – the alien had had a knife. He couldn't remember how their fight had ended, but evidently it hadn't been in his favour. He vaguely recalled knocking the Andorian unconscious – at least he thought that he'd been unconscious._

 _Panic suddenly surged though him – if the Andorian had got away the whole ship would be in danger, the man certainly had a mind to kill, and the means to do it._

 _He knew that talking would use up valuable breath, breath that he knew he couldn't afford to waste, but he had to know if the Andorian had been caught, and if not warn Spock of the danger._

 _His first couple of attempts to form words failed as he couldn't even get his lips and tongue to move properly, he was weak and he knew that he was failing, the darkness was beckoning to him again. He didn't have much time._

 _"Wh… where's the… Andorian?" He was finally able to ask, with a tremendous amount of effort. Speaking drained him, leaving his lungs screaming for air as words used up what little they had, and took up precious breaths. The words didn't quite come out as he'd intended, they were slurred and somewhat distorted by his inability to get his lips and tongue around the sounds needed to produce them – but he hoped that Spock would understand._

 _"The Andorian has been taken to the brig Captain." The Vulcan explained, to Kirk's relief. "He no longer presents a danger."_

 _Kirk breathed a sigh, and Spock felt the man's body go lax in his arms. He was beginning to fade – slipping back into unconsciousness again._

 _"Try to stay awake Captain." Spock tried to encourage him, and he felt his long fingers curl around his wrist – checking his pulse. "Don't go to sleep now. Doctor McCoy's on his way. Hold on just a little longer."_

 _Spock had never understood why people said such things in the presence of someone who was dying, but he spoke these words now out of sheer desperation, and in the absence of anything else meaningful to say. There was nothing he could do to keep the Captain from losing consciousness, and he couldn't reassure him that everything was going to be alright._

 _It was illogical to assume that anyone should have power of the physical failing of their body – when their organs were shutting down and there was no longer enough strength left within them to stay alive – but he understood that it was also perfectly natural to want to spur a loved one on to fight for as long as they possibly could._

 _As a Vulcan Spock couldn't comprehend the concept of love – he couldn't even begin to imagine how it felt to have so much emotionally invested in another to cause one to abandon all reason and logic. He'd never felt anything even vaguely akin to it in his lifetime. Love was an emotion and his Vulcan heritage had taught him that all emotions were illogical, and therefore not an efficient use of one's energy._

 _At least that's what people believed of him, and it suited him to have it so – but in truth Spock did know what it felt like to love. As a child growing up on Vulcan he'd always stood out from the other boys for his ineptitude to hide his ability to feel emotion. He'd doubted that he felt it as strongly as he might if he were wholly human, but a plurality of feelings had haunted him. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear and envy had been like a nagging ache, always on the periphery of conscious thought no matter how hard he tried to supress them. His childhood had been spent in constant limbo, not completely human, and yet not Vulcan enough to fit in with the other children either. They'd singled him out – had taunted him, saying that he wasn't really Vulcan. Consumed with rage, and confused about his own identity from a very young age his relationship with his father had been strained pretty much all his life. To him he'd always appeared cold and unfeeling, distancing himself from his son, giving the boy the the impression that he didn't care. Whatever Spock did had never seemed to be enough. He'd never celebrated his successes, comforted him when he'd cried, or come to his aid when he'd witnessed him being picked on by the other Vulcan boys. Spock had been a bitter and resentful child, but there was one person he had loved in the midst of his pain, and that had been his mother. It had seemed that just as his father had sort to push him away, so had his mother drawn him closer to her. He had even expressed his feeling towards her on more than one occasion, telling her that he loved her – much to Sarek's dismay._

 _School had been a nightmare, but Spock had been blessed with a good brain, and a thirst for knowledge, and everyday he'd thrown himself into his work. He'd worked harder and longer, until he'd become smarter than anyone else in his class. He'd excelled at maths, and linguistics, and had been commended by his teachers for his remarkable propensity for science. He'd learnt more about his heritage, eventually embracing his Vulcan identity, rejecting the human part of him, and had eliminated everything that wasn't logical from his life. Eventually he'd lost the ability to feel the nagging presence of the emotion that afflicted him almost completely._

 _The human part of him recognised that Jim was probably the closest thing to a friend he'd ever had however, and was ever likely to. He had so often tried to justify his feelings by telling himself they were attributable to nothing more than the healthy respect he felt for his commanding officer – to think that he might feel actual friendship for another man had made him feel ashamed – but over time Spock had had to accept that he simply liked having Jim around, he valued his company – and he supposed that if that constituted friendship it really wasn't that bad a thing. Now though, watching as he slowly slipped away from him he wondered what possible benefit there could be to letting someone get so close to you that they started to get inside your head. Spock couldn't think straight – there was very little he could actually do to help Jim. He wasn't a doctor – as a scientist he had a limited knowledge of the human anatomy, and of basic first aid. Although this knowledge was superior to that of most nothing he'd done so far had succeeded in stopping the bleeding. It was becoming increasingly apparent that Jim needed an operating theatre and a surgeon. He needed McCoy._

 _He didn't like the way any of this made him feel – and he supposed that this was what it was to be truly helpless._

 _He wondered how much time had passed since he'd spoken to McCoy. There was no way to tell down here – no sense of time. Seconds felt like minutes, so he imagined minutes would probably seem like hours – his perception of time was good enough for him to realise that it hadn't been that long. Finally he heard the sound of the elevator doors opening and closing further down the corridor, and a flurry of footsteps and what sounded like a gurney – its wheels rattling along the floor. He tore his gaze away from Jim for just a moment as he looked up instinctively in the direction from which the sound was coming, and felt the man go limp in his arms – he looked down and saw that his eyes were closed, the lids puffy and grey, and his breathing had suddenly become even more laboured. His chest was heaving with the effort of drawing in breath, his diaphragm pumping like a bellows – he'd lost consciousness again._

 _"Jim!" Spock exclaimed, trying to rouse him. He shook him slightly, as best he could without risking causing him anymore damage, and without taking one hand from the seeping wound, but he received no response. "Jim!"_

 _It was at that moment that McCoy appeared around the corner, closely followed by Doctor M'Benga and Nurse Chapel. He was somewhat surprised to see M'Benga, whom he'd assumed would take over Sarek's care in the absence of Doctor McCoy, being an expert in Vulcan physiology – but he supposed there was very little anyone could do for his father right now, and it made sense that the Captain's condition would warrant the attendance of the ship's three most senior medical personal._

 _It took McCoy only a few seconds to survey the situation with an expert eye before leaping into action. He didn't even acknowledge Spock, but bent down beside him as he barked at Nurse Chapel._

 _"Get a dressing on that, quickly!" He told her, indicating the wound. He observed the massive amount of blood as he whipped out his hand-held scanner and began assessing Jim's condition. Nurse Chapel primed the sterile gauze from the portable surgical kit with an anti-septic fluid. The pressure pack itself was infused with silver suphadiazine to help slow the development and the potential spread of any infection – although with a penetrating wound like the Captain's it was likely that any bacteria would have already been injected deep into the chest cavity._

 _Whilst all this was going on Spock didn't notice Doctor M'Benga bend down beside him until he felt his hands being removed from Jim's back. With the Captain now being taken care of he stood up and took a step back to survey the situation. His shoulders sagged slightly._

 _Doctor M'Benga was kneeling in the pool of the Captain's blood, the knees of his trousers smearing the crimson liquid as he slid himself across the floor, trying to get a better angle over his patient. The blood soaked rags – all that remained of Spock's ruined shirt – were tossed aside in the chaos as Nurse Chapel bent down to apply the pressure packet to Jim's chest and McCoy leaned further over him to check his pulse – placing two fingers to his neck, either side of his jugular vein._

 _"Jim?" He asked the man gently, but with a suitable degree of urgency, to try and provoke some sort of reaction from him. "Jim, can you hear me?" He asked again – but like Spock before him he received no response. He then leaned in closer over his back, carefully lifting the dressing to inspect the wound, whilst Nurse Chapel cut away the blood-soaked shirt from his back. He grimaced as he observed the mess the blade had made._

 _It was deep – a life threatening injury – and the skin was ragged and torn. It certainly wasn't a clean cut – the knife had chewed at the flesh as it had gone in, suggestive of a serrated blade. He could hear when he breathed in that some of the air which should, under normal circumstances, have remained within healthy lungs, escaped through the hole in his chest – the tell-tale sign that at least one lung had been punctured during the attack._

 _"God Jim!" He cursed under his breath – evidently his findings coupled with the tri-corder readings had been far from reassuring. Nobody had spoken a single word to the Vulcan since they'd arrived on the scene. McCoy hadn't even paused to ask him what had happened, there hadn't been enough time. Even he'd been surprised by the severity of the injuries the Captain had sustained. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when Spock had told him that Jim had been attacked by the Andorian, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad – as soon as he'd seen him he'd known that his friend had been mortally wounded._

 _"Christine I need you to get me ten ccs of morathial and forty milligrams of pulmozine please." He said, turning to Nurse Chapel as he spoke. She leapt straight to her feet, but her response time evidently wasn't fast enough for McCoy who was still carefully examining his friend, looking to back up his readings with his own observations._

 _"Quickly!" He barked at her._

 _She fetched the bag containing all the drugs and medical equipment they'd brought with them and placed it down beside him, before setting about preparing the two hyposprays. The Captain's condition was serious – her advanced nurse's training had meant that she could be under no illusion in this regard – but as soon as Doctor McCoy had asked her for the morathial she'd known that his condition was critical. Morathial was a drug used to treat only the most seriously injured of patients, when their blood pressure was dangerously low, pulmozine helped stimulate breathing. If the doctor had felt the need to use both of these drugs together then that meant the man was already in respiratory failure._

 _She handed the two hyposprays to him, and he quickly emptied the contents of both into Jim's arm._

 _"Get the respirator on him." He then ordered her, before turning to Doctor M'Benga._

 _"His vital signs are unstable." He told him. "He's going into hypovolemic shock, with massive internal bleeding."_

 _"We need to get him back to sickbay." M'Benga concurred._

 _McCoy nodded gravely in agreement. The longer he remained out here the more precious time they lost, but if they tried to move him now he could bleed out before they could get him to sickbay. He'd already lost a massive amount of blood, his body was going into shock and his vital signs were bottoming out. Their only choice was to pump his full of powerful drugs and hope this was enough to stabilise his condition long enough to enable them to move him without killing him._

 _"I'll need to operate." McCoy concluded. "The blade has punctured his left lung, but we can't even think about moving him until his condition has stabilised."_

 _"Can I be of any assistance?" Spock asked, feeling utterly useless standing in the corner. McCoy looked at him as though observing him for the first time. He realised that as soon as they'd arrived on the scene all three's focus had been on Jim – the Vulcan's presence had been practically forgotten._

 _"Yes." McCoy said, thinking out loud and grateful for the extra pair of hands. "Take the mask from Christine Spock." He told him. "Keep it steady over Jim's mouth and nose. The gas should help him to breathe a little easier." He then turned to look at Nurse Chapel as Spock did as instructed. He took the mask and held it over Jim's face, noticing from this new proximity that the Captain wasn't gasping for air anymore and he appeared to be breathing slightly easier._

 _"Nurse I need you to pass the following drugs to Doctor M'Benga," McCoy meanwhile was saying, "we need trioxin, cordrazine, coranalin and a tri-ox compound. M'Benga I want you to draw the maximum amount of each, but don't administer it. I'll inject him." He told them._

 _Doctor M'Benga nodded. He wasn't in as senior a position as McCoy, but his experience in his own field of expertise very nearly mirrored the Chief Medical Officer's exemplary grasp of general medicine. He wasn't quite as skilled a surgeon, but he evidently approved. Spock watched as Nurse Chapel passed several vials of medication to M'Benga, who then syphoned off a measured dose of each into several of the small canisters, which he attached to a number of hyposprays, before handing the first of which to McCoy._

 _"Cordrazine." He told him, indicating which of the drugs he was giving him first. Spock had a fairly sound grasp of some of the most common drugs, and a fair amount of knowledge about many of the lesser used, restricted ones, too. He knew that cordrazine was a powerful heart stimulant – its effect was quite similar to that of defibulation used in years gone by, only instead of delivering an electric shock to the heart, the chemical compound was strong enough to stimulate the heart back into normal sinus rhythm. It was a dangerous drug though – too much could very quickly kill a patient, especially one who's heart was already weakened – and therefore was only used on those whose heart had already stopped or those who were at serious risk of suffering a cardiac arrest. It was the first indication Spock had of just how seriously injured the captain was. McCoy carefully examined the hypo, checking for air bubbles, before injecting it into a vein bulging in Kirk's neck. He waited a couple of seconds before running his hand-held scanner over him again, this time paying very close attention to the area directly over and surrounding his heart, and after a further moment he turned to M'Benga and smiled._

 _"We have normal rhythm." He confirmed, to everyone's evident relief. He was then handed the next hypospray – as happy as they all were that the captain's heart was beating normally again there was no time to celebrate._

 _"Trioxin." M'Benga said. This Spock knew they would be being used to treat Jim's lung injury. McCoy then injected the following drugs into Jim's arm in quick succession._

 _"Coranalin." This drug was also used to treat damaged organs._

 _"Triox Compound." This oxygenated the blood, and would make it easier for him to breathe._

 _Whilst they waited for the cocktail of drugs to take effect McCoy then turned his attention to the wound in Jim's back, but as he carefully lifted the edge of the pressure pack Christine had secured in place blood began to ooze and bubble up from the deep hole in his chest, and the doctor quickly replaced the bandage again with a grimace. As he did so a quiet moan escaped Jim, and the man shivered where he lay. He was so weak he could barely move, but Spock was still holding the respirator mask over his face and he watched as his eyes cracked open slightly. They were glassy and without focus – clouded by blood loss and pain. The Vulcan doubted, in his current state, that he would have a true sense of awareness of what was going on around him._

 _"Triptacederine, quickly." McCoy said, turning to Christine, who quickly handed him the hypospray, and he emptied its contents into his friend's arm. Triptacederine, the Vulcan knew, was a powerful painkiller, and after a few moments Jim seemed to relax slightly. He stopped trembling and seemed to slip back into unconsciousness. The doctor ran his hand-held scanner over him once again and seemed pleased with his findings._

 _"He's stabilising." He told them all. "Heartrate is still slightly irregular but strong, and steady. Blood oxygen levels are rising. Pressure is still low though. We need to move him now. Christine, take the respirator mask from Spock." He told her, taking charge of proceedings as they prepared to move the captain. They only had a small window of opportunity in which to do so, once the drugs in his system wore off there was no guarantee how his body would respond to another dose. Certainly any more cordrazine would very likely kill him – his heart would likely be unable to cope with the high dose of stimulants. "Doctor M'Benga and I will lift him." He said. "M'Benga take his legs, I'll take his shoulders."_

 _Spock moved aside as Nurse Chapel appeared beside him, handing over charge of the respirator mask to her. He stood up and stepped back, stretching his aching legs which had stiffened and set in place whilst he'd been kneeling on the floor. He watched McCoy and M'Benga lift the captain gently, Christine keeping the mask steady against his face as they moved him to the gurney. They positioned him on his front, lying him flat on his stomach with his head turned to the side. Nurse Chapel and Doctor M'Benga then whisked him away quickly on McCoy's instruction._

 _"Get him to sickbay, now." He ordered. "Prep for surgery. I'll be there in a minute." He then turned to look at Spock, observing the state the Vulcan was in for the first time. He took in the blood-soaked rags he was wearing, the full length of his uniform shirt arms missing all the way up to his tattered shoulders, and his hands stained crimson with blood. He frowned._

 _"You'd better go get yourself cleaned up Spock." He told him and, looking down at himself, the Vulcan nodded. He gave no outward indication of what he was feeling, or the thoughts filling his head but his dark eyes conveyed a level of concern McCoy knew he would never voice out loud. His ruined shirt was testament to the fact that he'd done everything he could for his friend before the medical team had arrived. Spock looked tired – under normal circumstances he would have recommended that he rest after what he'd been through but he knew the Vulcan would protest and he really didn't have time to argue with him and present his case at the moment._

 _"What would you say his chances are doctor?" Spock asked – blunt and to the point as always._

 _"I'll do everything I can Spock." McCoy promised him. "I'll let you know."_

 _The Vulcan nodded – there was nothing more either man could say, but he could tell by the doctor's tone and the look on his face that things weren't good. McCoy then turned and hurried away and Spock, after commanding a team to clean up deck five, made his way to his own quarters to wash and change his shirt before returning to the bridge to let them know what had happened._

"McCoy to bridge." Spock was immediately pulled from his reminiscence by the sound of McCoy's voice requesting him over the comm. "Spock, are you there?" The doctor asked. He sounded tired.

"Spock here." The Vulcan answered him. "How's the captain?"

Outwardly he appeared the architype of calm, his concern caged, but like a frenetic bird privately he was impatient to find out how the captain's surgery had gone. Scotty still hadn't ceased contacting him – the chief engineer was evidently unsettled by his own concern for his friend – and Spock was weary. He wouldn't admit to it but the Ambassador's constant requests for information and their complaining was beginning to get to him. As well as feeling utterly exhausted and drained of his usual energy he was also starting to feel somewhat breathless.

"He's in recovery now." McCoy explained. "The operation went well. It took a lot longer than I expected though. There were a few complications. He's going to be in a lot of pain when he wakes up."

"Complications?" Spock frowned. "What do you mean complications?" He asked him.

"Can we discuss it here?" McCoy sighed. He sounded weary and tense, and the Vulcan could tell by his tone alone that the surgery had evidently been tough on both patient and surgeon. McCoy's reluctance to discuss anything further with him until they could speak face to face also made him feel uneasy.

"I'm on my way." Spock told him. "Spock out."

He cut the comm, getting gingerly to his feet and stretching the muscles in his stiff and aching legs – he'd been sitting for far too long.

"Mr Sulu, you have the con." He told the helmsman.

He wasn't in peak physical condition, and he could feel it within his own body that something wasn't right as he left the bridge. He was confident that it wasn't anything serious, he just needed a little longer to recover from the after effects of the blood transfusion the day before, but he hoped that McCoy would have bigger issues occupying his mind, and that he wouldn't notice all the same.


	6. Chapter 6

When Spock reached the sickbay he found Doctor McCoy waiting for him. He was sitting at his computer but turned in his chair when he heard the sickbay doors open behind him, and Spock could see that he had been in the process of updating Jim's medical file when he'd entered. He could see the computer screen from over the doctor's shoulder, but he switched it off as he got to his feet and the two men approached each other.

Spock noticed that the doctor looked drawn, and the heavy circles underneath his eyes were a testament to just how weary he was feeling.

Neither spoke for a moment – Spock was eager to hear news of the captain, but could tell by McCoy's silence that the surgery evidently hadn't gone entirely according to plan. He almost didn't want to ask, out of some irrational anxiety that his friend hadn't made it – although the doctor's expression bore no indication that this was the case, and Spock did his best to repress the emotional responses that so shamed him, but that he knew would always be a natural part of him.

The silence seemed to go on forever, his impatience for news making it seem endless, but logic dictated that the length of time in which neither of them spoke probably lasted no longer than a matter of seconds.

McCoy was the first to speak, greeting the Vulcan in his usual mild-mannered way – who observed that he sounded even more tired than he looked.

"Ah, Spock." He smiled slightly, wiping the palms of his hands on a small blue towel Spock had not observed clenched within his fist. There was of course no need, they were already quite clean, if not a little clammy. He'd evidently found the surgery particularly stressful – which was perhaps only to be expected given the circumstances. He'd been operating on a Starfleet captain, which was responsibility enough, but the fact that his patient also happened to be one of his closest friends must have made the procedure particularly difficult for him and complicated the matter, knowing what Spock knew of human nature, and matters of the human heart. He knew that a surgeon wasn't supposed to operate on a friend, that under normal circumstances to do so might be considered unethical, but here, aboard the Enterprise, that was almost impossible when McCoy's patients were those he happened to live, work and socialise amongst. To those onboard he was closest to he was a friend, a confidant – especially to Jim – and when they needed him to be he was also their doctor.

McCoy massaged the knots out of the muscles in the back of his neck.

"Doctor." The Vulcan nodded respectfully, returning the greeting. He watched McCoy closely, observing the man's movements and trying to glean something from his body language beyond how evidently tired he was feeling – but for once he could not.

"How's he doing?" He finally had to ask.

McCoy sighed, and it was obvious just how worried and concerned he was – his brow furrowed and his expression became even graver as he considered the captain's condition.

"Better than we can probably expect under the circumstances Spock." He told him. "But not good."

"You said there were complications?" Spock pressed him. As was the Vulcan way he didn't give the doctor anywhere to hide in his questioning of him, adopting a more direct approach, and going straight to the root of the matter which was praying upon his mind. McCoy looked at him, the normally soft lines of his forehead carving deep crevices along the already furrowed flesh as he frowned.

He nodded.

"Yes." He said. "You see, before we put Jim under he was complaining of abdominal pain." He explained. "When we operated we discovered that he'd sustained a ruptured spleen."

"Was it necessary to remove it?" Spock asked, but McCoy shook his head.

"No," He told him, and he rubbed a hand over his face thoughtfully, "thankfully the damage was minimal – a small tear to the splenic capsule. My guess is that the blade probably nicked the organ when Jim was stabbed yesterday, and the trauma exerted on him since caused the internal injury to open up." He paused for a moment before continuing, giving the Vulcan a couple of seconds to let this new information sink in – not that he really needed it. "I've managed to repair the damage and stop the internal bleeding." He explained. "He lost a reasonable amount of blood but nothing too catastrophic. As you already know he received a blood transfusion this morning, and we've already started giving him another. I've given him a dose of tranexamic acid and I'll reassess him again in another couple of hours. If his blood count is still low we'll have to discuss whether we continue with the blood transfusions or try him on an antifibrinolytic instead."

"How long will he be asleep for?" The Vulcan continued his interrogation – or at least that was how it was beginning to feel to McCoy, who was tired and it was obvious that he didn't really appreciate the barrage of questions now being thrown at him. He'd asked Spock to come to sickbay to fill him in on Kirk's condition, not only in his capacity as the ship's first officer, but also as the captain's friend, but what the doctor wanted now more than anything else was a shower, a change of clothes, and maybe even a couple of hours rest if he could steel some time to himself before he was needed again. He couldn't however retire when there was still so much for him to do in sickbay, and he wouldn't even consider leaving to attend to his own needs until Jim had regained consciousness, which he knew probably wouldn't be for another couple of hours. The cocktail of drugs he'd given him had been made up of a powerful combination of mild muscle relaxants, painkillers and sedatives, and he doubted he'd be waking up anytime soon, even with Jim's constitution. McCoy realised that he was going to be in for a long night.

He often remained close by when he found himself faced with a patient in critical condition – in case he was needed in the event of an emergency – and this usually led to a snatched couple of hours sleep on the cot in his office. He didn't really mind, although he'd be lying if he denied ever finding himself longing for a few uninterrupted hours to himself he'd grown accustomed to the sleepless nights, and his experiences at medical school had quickly taught him to grab what meagre mouthfuls of food he could when he had the chance. He'd had the cot installed for this very reason, and had had many an occasion to be grateful for it since, but he still preferred the comfort of his own bed, and the peace and quiet of his own, private quarters given half the chance.

As Chief Medical Officer McCoy was now in the very fortunate position to be able to delegate if he so wished to, but he so very rarely did, and he realised that he wouldn't be able to rest easy tonight, not without knowing how Jim was fairing back in sickbay.

"Well, I'm going to keep him heavily sedated a while longer." McCoy told Spock. "As I've already told you he'll very likely be in a lot of pain when he wakes up. He was already weak before this third surgery, the damage to his chest is too extensive for the dermal regenerator to be of any benefit, and the rupture to his spleen has only weakened him further. I'd like to make sure he rests a while longer, it'll be hard enough to get him to once he wakes up, even with him being as weak as he is."

Spock nodded – both men knew their friend well, and he knew this to be true. James Kirk could accurately be described as a man of action, certainly not the sitting down type. He would frequently push himself beyond the limits of his own endurance, and Spock knew that as soon as he was physically able to get out of bed it would be almost impossible to keep him there.

"What course of treatment do you propose then doctor?" He asked him.

McCoy had been in the process of finalising a treatment plan when Spock had entered, the details of which were still fresh in his mind.

"We're running a bag of saline into him now and we're going to start him on a course of IV anti-inflamatories when Christine has had them brought up from the medical store." He told him. "I want to try him on a morphine derivative for the pain – it's not as strong as some of the other drugs I could choose to give him, but it's still a powerful painkiller, and it's important that we keep our options open in the event that we need to give him a little extra pain relief. He's going to need regular doses of trioxin until his lung function improves, and I'm going to start him on a broad-spectrum anti-biotic. His white cell count is raised and he has a slight fever suggestive of infection. I'll do my best to treat any other symptoms as and when they present themselves."

Spock nodded, and McCoy could see the cogs turning in the Vulcan's brain. Exactly what it was he was thinking was a secret known only to him, but he suspected that it probably wouldn't be too difficult to guess along which track they wandered. Spock knew that these were all very strong drugs McCoy had Kirk on – drugs which weren't always necessarily used in such powerful combination. Every one of them carried the risk of side effects that would also need to be managed, and he suspected that this was probably, in part, what McCoy had meant when he'd said he'd do his best to manage any other symptoms as and when they presented themselves.

It seemed to Spock as though the captain's condition had improved very little since the day before. There could be no doubt that the emergency surgery, immediately following the attack, had been what had saved his life, but Spock was still inwardly beating himself up for not consenting to the blood transfusion sooner – if he had then Scotty would have assumed command during the attack on the ship, and Jim would never have had cause to leave the sickbay. He couldn't deny the seed of guilt which festered within his own heart for the contribution he had made to the captain's current condition.

"I just hope I've done the right thing." McCoy went on. "It's better for Jim in the long term if we manage to save his spleen, but he's so weak that if we do eventually need to remove it I can't comment on his chances of surviving another surgery."

"And if you don't?" Spock pressed him. He tried to keep any trace of despondency out of his tone – to appear as matter of fact as possible, despite the seriousness of the circumstances – but his voice betrayed him when it broke. He tried to disguise this momentary lapse in control by clearing his throat and masking it as a slight dry cough. McCoy looked at him with barely concealed concern, but proceeded to respond.

"Well he's young and he's strong." He conceded, Spock's attempt to disguise his slight indiscretion having not escaped his notice. "If he does as he ort to and rests he should make a full recovery, given time. As to whether he'll be strong enough to resume command within the time Starfleet gives him, that remains to be seen though."

"I see." Spock nodded. He knew that the chances of Jim abiding by medical advice and remaining in bed long enough to allow his body time to fully recover were slim. Even with the knowledge of what was at stake – his captaincy of the Enterprise – he knew the temptation to work would be just too great, and in the event of another emergency his feelings of loyalty to his ship and its crew would be just too overwhelming to allow him to remain at rest. In many ways the most logical thing to do would be to have him transferred to a Starfleet field hospital on the nearest Starbase – to completely remove him from the source of his temptation – but there was also a part of the Vulcan, perhaps even the human part of him, that realised that Jim's recovery rested on more than just his physical rehabilitation alone. His moral too had to be kept up, and he understood that the best way to do this would be to find a way to keep him here, aboard the Enterprise with them. They needed to do everything they could to keep his mind active whilst his body healed.

James Kirk's spirit was strong – he had an energy and a lust for life and living quite unlike that of any man the Vulcan had ever known. It powered his desire to succeed, had helped him rise through the ranks, and it was the driving force behind his quest for discovery, but he wasn't invincible, as the previous day had shown. He was ambitious, effervescent, and a real force to be reckoned with, but on the same score he also felt things very deeply and could be prone to bouts of melancholy. His spirit could very easily be stifled under the strict regime of the Starfleet hospital – it was a grave realisation.

"Spock, Jim's got a fight on his hands." McCoy explained, as though he'd read his mind and realised what he was thinking – or perhaps it was simply that the same thing had occurred to him too. "The spleen is part of the immune system. The rupture has weakened it, leaving him vulnerable to infection. I know it won't be easy for him but it's going to be really important that he rests. It's not only his position aboard the Enterprise that's at stake here, but if he doesn't take it easy his life too may be at risk."

McCoy could see that Spock was taking in everything he was telling him – he nodded in response, but he appeared distracted, distant, and far removed from his usual self. Something about him didn't seem quite right, and it occurred to the doctor that he was trying too hard to appear normal, but was failing with uncommon totality. There seemed to be an uncharacteristic air of self-doubt about him and he wondered whether it had anything to do with how he was feeling. McCoy could tell that he was feeling more susceptible to the emotions he didn't usually let show, and if he was being completely honest he was somewhat worried about him – he had seen the Vulcan like this, but only a couple of times before.

"How are you anyway Spock?" He asked him. He frowned as he took in his pale complexion, and the dark shadows underneath his eyes – which appeared slightly sunken to him, although so subtly so that it was very difficult to tell for sure. "You're looking a little tired." He observed.

"As are you doctor." Spock pointed out, raising his pointed eyebrows and crossing his arms against his chest protectively. It was subtle, but indisputable proof of his vulnerability. He seemed distinctly unimpressed by the attention suddenly being lavished on him by the doctor, and McCoy could tell that he was going to make it as hard as possible for him to effectuate his duty of care.

"I'm just through with three hours of surgery Spock. Don't change the subject." He said.

"I am fine." Spock did his best to reassure his concerns, dismissing him without sufficient answer – but McCoy was having none of it.

"I'd like to examine you if I may." He pressed him, unperturbed. "I need to reassess how your body's responding to the stimulant, make sure there's no adverse effects on your system."

"My 'system' as you put it doctor is fine." Spock contended. Despite the fact that the doctor's observations weren't too far from the truth there was even an expression of mild amusement upon his pale face, and a hint of condescension in his voice.

"Now listen here you green blooded hobgoblin." McCoy growled warningly. "Between the two of you you and Jim sure make it difficult for me to do my job, sometimes I think you both deliberately conspire to try my patience, but I am still Chief Medical Officer aboard this ship, and it may have escaped your memory but you were the recipient of a very powerful stimulant less than twenty four hours ago – not to mention the blood you donated! You shouldn't even be out of bed, let alone having returned to duty!"

'Bridge to Mr Spock. Mr Spock come in please.' Lieutenant Uhura's voice suddenly came over the intercom however, and the Vulcan quickly made his way over. McCoy overserved that his movements seemed a little stiff, but the call sounded urgent. He held off saying anything further for the moment but he realised he couldn't hold off raising his concerns indefinitely. He had a duty of care as the ship's Chief Medical Officer, as well as a responsibility to make sure that every member of the Enterprise crew were fit to carry out their duties, whether that be the captain, his second in command, the commissioning officers and the ensigns.

"Spock here." The Vulcan responded, punching the button to grant two-way communication a little too fiercely. He appeared distinctly short tempered.

'Sir, I've received reports that a fight has broken out between two of the Ambassadors. You're needed back on the Bridge immediately." She told him.

Spock sighed. He knew that with the captain out of action and tensions already highly charged between some of the Ambassadors on board this was going to become a far more frequent occurrence. There were certain individuals who were sure to want to use the situation to their own advantage, using Kirk's injury and subsequent indisposition as an opportunity to air their grievances. They needed to nip these arguments in the bud if they wanted to avoid finding themselves with a full-scale riot on their hands.

"I'm on my way. Order a security detail to deal with the situation." He told her. "Have the offending parties taken to the Brig. I'll speak to them myself later. Spock out." He cut the line of communication before she even had time to reply – and Spock hoped that a few hours spent in custody might force them to reconsider their actions. He then turned to address Doctor McCoy.

"I have to go."

"Spock, I have to perform that examination!" McCoy exclaimed. "You know I can't break protocol, even for you!"

"Of course you do Doctor." The Vulcan nodded. "But not right now."

"Spock!" He barked, as his friend turned to leave, but he was interrupted when Nurse Chapel suddenly came hurrying in, and the Vulcan took full advantage of the situation – using it to make his escape. McCoy watched him go – his concerns no less reassured as he observed his slightly lopsided gait, and the awkward way he appeared to be holding himself. Something was definitely wrong, and the surgeon was determined to get to the bottom of what. "Don't make me use my medical override to force you to consent to examination!" He shouted after him, but Spock had already turned a corner and was gone. If he heard the doctor's words they didn't compel him to return.

"Doctor McCoy!" Nurse Chapel addressed him urgently. "The Captain's waking up!"

"What?" McCoy frowned. "I gave him enough sedative to knock him out for at least another couple of hours!"

"I know you did." Nurse Chapel nodded. "But I'm afraid he seems to be fighting the medication you gave him and he appears to be in some distress. You'd better come."

He followed her into the adjacent room, where sure enough the monitors above Jim's bed were indeed indicating that he was in a state of some considerable distress. His oxygen saturation levels were still low – which was quite unsurprising and to be expected under the circumstances – but his blood pressure was starting to climb, and his pulse was racing. His breathing was coming in short, raged gasps and McCoy suddenly found himself barking orders to Nurse Chapel and the emergency response team who had hurried into the room after them, as together they fought to stabilise the captain.

"Damn it Jim!" He cursed under his breath. "Why'd you have to wake up so soon?"

The man's complexion was pale, he was sweating, and he had also started to shake slightly – it was becoming increasingly evident that regaining consciousness so soon after such an invasive operation had sent his body into a state of shock. The surgery to his chest alone had been serious enough, but the work they'd also had to do to repair the damage to his spleen had complicated the procedure and had placed his body under a considerable amount of strain. Whilst they continued to work on him the alarm went off above his bed and McCoy reached over to switch it off.

"It's alright Jim." He tried to reassure him, aware that he may be able to hear what was going on as he filled a hypospray and quickly injected its contents into a vein in Jim's arm. The man's vital signs were far from normal, but he waited for them to return to what he considered to be a more acceptable range – monitoring them closely. He watched with some relief when after a couple of minutes the man started to relax. His stats started to stabilise, and as they did so Nurse Chapel also took a step back from his bedside. She breathed a sigh as the sedative McCoy had given him started to take effect and Kirk slipped peacefully back into unconsciousness. The doctor then gave him another dose of painkillers and checked to make sure that the respirator mask was set to maximum air flow. He didn't say anything but Jim's lungs were still weaker than they ought to have been, even despite the surgery, and his low levels of oxygen saturation concerned him. The monitors above his bed showed that he needed a little extra help breathing and he increased his oxygen dosage slightly, hoping to reduce the stress being placed on his heart and lungs.

"If he's going to keep fighting the anaesthetic like that I think I'm going to need a few stiff shots of that saurian brady of yours doctor." Nurse Chapel smiled, and McCoy directed a small half smile in her direction. He didn't really feel very much like smiling though and he kept a close eye on the screen above Kirk's bed, making sure that his vital signs continued to stabilise. Once satisfied he lowered himself down slowly into the chair Nurse Chapel had vacated.

"It's ok nurse." He told her. "You go and check on Sarek. I'll stay and keep an eye on the captain for a while."

"Last I heard from Doctor M'Benga Sarek was making good progress." She informed him, trying, rather unsuccessfully, to make conversation. She didn't really want to leave the captain's side anymore than McCoy did, and he could sense her reluctance. Although she wasn't as close to him as the doctor she had a great deal of respect for Captain Kirk, and was scared of what might happen if she did.

McCoy nodded – he was of course already aware of Sarek's progress, Doctor M'Benga had informed him of the improvements to the man's condition before he'd updated anybody else. The speed of the man's recovery was unprecedented, but he'd wanted to give Nurse Chapel something to do to try and take her mind off the worry in her heart, and they had only one other patient. McCoy didn't have any reason to believe that Jim's life was in any immediate danger, but he couldn't give her any guarantees as to what the likely outcome would be either. In some ways not knowing was the hardest part. It was both frustrating, and sometimes even unnerving, as a medical professional to realise that you didn't necessarily have all the answers.

Kirk's chest and stomach were heavily swathed in bandages, but McCoy could see the merest hint of bruising beneath the dressings. He realised that his friend's torso was probably already a mass of purple discolouration. There was nothing he could give him for that, it was a natural result of the trauma inflicted on his body by the knife attack the day before followed by the multiple surgeries. It was too extensive for the dermal regenerator to be of much effect. They were just going to have to wait for them to heal naturally.

Whilst McCoy was examining Jim Nurse Chapel retreated into the adjacent room. She didn't want the doctor to see the tears in her eyes – it wasn't professional – but the captain had never been this ill before, and she found it upsetting to see a man usually so full of energy and spirit completely debilitated by his injuries. He'd had reason to find himself in sickbay before, he was no stranger to illness and injury, and in the line of her duty as a nurse she had assisted with overseeing his care on a number of occasions. She'd seen him concussed, in pain, delirious with fever, weakened by infection, suffering varying degrees of exhaustion and had treated him for a varied range of injuries – some fairly minor as well as those of a more serious nature – but to see him now, so still and listless in his unconsciousness, and needing a respirator mask to help him breathe, was hard. She waited, choosing to linger close by for a few further minutes, just to make absolutely sure that she was no longer needed – but when she heard no further sound coming from the recovery room she assumed that the captain's condition was finally stable for now and so left to check on Sarek, doing as McCoy had instructed of her.

Meanwhile McCoy sat at his friend's bedside, the silence broken only by the regular high-pitched bleeping coming from the machines being fed vital information by the bio-bed. Jim's stats and vital signs were displayed on the screen above his bed where they could be easily seen by his medical team. He had him under close observation, and it was clear that his life was no longer in any immediate danger, but the silence did nothing to bring about a peaceful frame of mind in the doctor. McCoy's thoughts turned to cataloguing everything the man's body had been through over the course of the past twenty-four hours, and the image the facts painted was a grave one – a penetrating chest wound, a punctured lung, he'd sustained some significant internal damage resulting in further internal bleeding into his chest cavity, and a hemithorax causing his lung to collapse, a ruptured spleen, and he'd also endured three major surgeries to try and repair the damage done. He was weak and was also running a slight fever, which along with his raised white cell count was indicative that he was now also fighting an infection.

"It's quite a mess you've got yourself into Jim-boy." He sighed, realising that he hadn't called him that in a while.

McCoy couldn't imagine anyone being able to withstand much more than what Kirk had already been through. He would do his best of course, as he did for all of his patients, but he was worried that on this occasion his best just might not be good enough. Being a physician also meant that he could be under no illusions as to the seriousness of his friend's condition. The human body could only take so much, and he didn't need to be a doctor to see that Jim's had just about reached the limits of its endurance.


	7. Chapter 7

McCoy stayed with Jim for the next couple of hours, watching him as he slept – keeping a very close eye on him. Now that Sarek was no longer in any immediate danger he'd assigned his care to Doctor M'Benga, this way he could remain where he was most needed and not have to worry about being called away, unless in the event of a real medical emergency.

The Captain's vital signs were still unstable and there'd been a couple of worrying moments when his blood pressure had dropped and his heartrate had started to slow. McCoy had given him some extra medicine to help better regulate these but it was no substitute for his own body performing this function for itself. All he could do for now was monitor his friend's condition and let the drugs do their work. Only time would tell whether or not Jim would recover, but it was hard knowing that, at least for now, there was nothing more he could do.

That was perhaps the hardest thing about this situation, the most difficult part of being a doctor was when, even with all the knowledge, medical training and understanding, there was nothing you could do to help a friend. All he could ever really remember wanting to do was study medicine. It had never occurred to him that medical science still didn't hold all of the answers. He'd just wanted to help people – to cure them of their suffering and relieve their pain. He'd never expected to be in a situation where his patients would also become some of his closest friends – but joining Starfleet had made that a reality for him.

Nurse Chapel too found herself experiencing a similar trail of thought. She was only human after all, and as much as she understood that it wasn't advisable to get too emotionally involvd with her patients, that was a near impossibility when the people in her care were those she lived with, worked alongside, and socialised with. Doing this job could really hurt sometimes.

She'd checked on Sarek, but Doctor M'Benga's assessment of Spock's father's condition had been as accurate as his knowledge of Vulcan physiology dictated it ort. The Vulcan had spent the latter part of the morning in a healing trance, and although still physically weak his vital signs were now stable, and from what she herself knew of the Vulcan cardiac and respiratory system his heart appeared to be functioning normally again. She only wished that humans could put themselves in a healing trance in the same way Vulcan's could – that Jim could simply go off to sleep and wake up a few hours later healed – but sadly he didn't have that same luxury. He would have to take the long road to recovery.

One thing that Sarek's latest batch of test results had flagged up, which couldn't be fixed by a healing trance, however was that he was still slightly dehydrated, which was perhaps not entirely unexpected given his blood loss during surgery the day before. Heart surgery carried with it a particularly high risk of losing a substantial amount of blood, but as per Doctor M'Benga's instructions Nurse Chapel hooked him up to a saline and mineral drip before making a note of his vital signs. She made sure that he was as comfortable as possible and not in too much pain, before heading back to intensive care to check on the Captain's condition.

On her way she had to pass McCoy's office to drop off some of M'Benga's notes, to be added to Sarek's medical file. She placed them in the trey on his desk, where she knew the Chief Medical Officer kept the paperwork he hadn't yet added to the computer system. Most of their work was done electronically these days, but provision was still made of the occasional handwritten note. There was a cup of coffee sitting on his desk, three quarters empty and stone cold, and she suspected that he'd probably been in the process of drinking it when Jim had started bleeding again the night before. The bed clothes on his cot were rumpled suggesting that he had at least managed to snatch a couple of hours sleep, and she made to tidy it a little, wanting to make herself useful to try and alleviate some of the helplessness she was currently feeling.

It was whilst she was straightening the blankets that Uhura's voice suddenly burst over the intercom – startling her slightly, and making her visibly jump. The young woman sounded worried.

There was no sound to the intercom in intensive care, only a flashing light to signal the presence of someone on the other end, and suspecting that McCoy would probably still be too focused on Jim to notice the blinking red orb she got up to answer the call – hoping that it wasn't about anything too serious. She realised that the Lieutenant could just be calling on the behalf of a concerned crew member, wanting to enquire as to the Captain's condition, but they couldn't afford another medical emergency right now. McCoy was already exhausted, and Jim was going to need around the clock monitoring and care for the next few days at least. She knew that McCoy wanted to keep the extent of his injury from the crew, and she could completely understand why. None of them had seen him so seriously ill before, even McCoy had never seen him quite so sick. Jim had managed to hold things together on the Bridge the day before – his ship had been under attack and the adrenaline had kept him going long enough to enable him to deal with the immediate threat. It was a real testament to the captain's strength and character, that he'd been able to work through the pain – and Christine knew that he would have been in quite a lot of pain. She remembered how he'd sat there, passive and resigned on the edge of the bio-bed, whilst she'd helped him get dressed, how he'd struggled to stand – even with McCoy's assistance – and how quickly it had become apparent how difficult walking was for him. He'd paid a tremendous price to save his ship and her crew – and Spock would probably never know the true extent of the sacrifice he had made to save Sarek's life.

Kirk's injured lung was currently failing. He was fighting but she knew that he'd only survived this long because of the extraordinary advances in medical science. The cocktail of drugs he was on were currently helping to stabilise his condition but even with all the support they were giving him his body was struggling to recover. McCoy knew he'd have to let the crew know sooner rather than later, and nobody wanted to contemplate the possibility, but if Kirk was to die arrangements had to be made to ensure the smooth running of the ship and to minimise the disruption to their mission. It was devastating, but as painful as this whole situation was Christine knew that this was the way the captain would have wanted it.

She knew that McCoy planned to talk with Spock and Scotty later about their current situation – but she was also aware that it was a conversation he was dreading having to have. Sometimes talking about things seemed to make them seem so final.

Spock meanwhile had made it back to the Bridge, with some considerable effort on his part. He hadn't told McCoy – he really wasn't up to the doctor's fussing right now, and he hadn't wanted to divert the man's attention away from the captain – but he really wasn't feeling too great himself. His concern was really beginning to get to him and this in itself was a warning sign that something was amiss with his own body. He would normally have managed to maintain a much tighter hold over his emotions, but his physical weakness was also seriously testing his resolve.

It was becoming increasingly apparent that the captain was probably much more seriously ill than McCoy was letting on, and he couldn't escape the feeling that there was something the Chief Medical Officer was holding back from him. The fact that he hadn't been permitted to see Kirk since the evening before had done little to alleviate these growing concerns, he felt that if he could just see him he would have the evidence of his own eyes that things were not quite a bad as everyone seemed to be imagining, but the memory of finding Jim the day before, so close to death, still haunted him – and he realised that the man wasn't going to be able to escape the inevitable complications of his injuries.

Spock's vision blurred and he screwed his eyes shut against the fuzziness of his surroundings, pinching the bridge of his nose to also try and dispel the ache which had settled in his head. He was sweating slightly – and every muscle, joint and bone in his body ached. He wasn't used to having to try and function with a body that felt as heavy as lead, and joints as stiff as rusting hinges. It physically hurt him to move, but he simply didn't have the presence of mind to even try and supress the pain he was feeling – he was too exhausted to care.

This was not the way Vulcan's dealt with things – what he was feeling and experiencing now were alarmingly human traits, and he didn't like it. He'd had a choice as a child about who he wanted to be, and had chosen the Vulcan way of life. He'd been raised as a Vulcan, been taught as a Vulcan, and had come to see himself as wholly Vulcan. He tried very hard to distance himself from his human half, not out of any disrespect to his mother but because he genuinely saw the Vulcan approach to living as offering a better way of life.

He looked around, relieved for once that he was sitting in the captain's chair rather than standing at his usual post – sitting anywhere was certainly preferential to standing at the moment. The dizziness was sure to have had an effect on his balance, and at least sitting it would be easier for him to maintain the façade that he was alright.

He could feel Lieutenant Uhura's eyes on him from behind, and the hair stood up on the back of his neck – which he could feel was already beaded with sweat, and probably glistening. He realised that this was probably what had attracted her attention. The temperature on Vulcan was significantly hotter than that on Earth, the air more thin – Vulcan's sensitivity to heat was different to that of human's, they had a higher tolerance for it and very rarely perspired. He put a palm to the back of his neck and wiped the sheen of sweat away.

"Mr Spock, are you alright?" She asked him.

He took a breath to steady himself, to try and prevent his voice from shaking when he spoke.

"Quite alright yes, thank you Lieutenant." He responded in the most formal manner he could muster under the circumstances – it wasn't easy, keeping the pain out of his voice.

He hoped that this might pacify her concerns and that she might turn around and go back to her work. He had no such luck however, and he could still feel her eyes boring into the back of his neck. His voice had sounded brusque, even for him, he was aware of how strained it sounded and his tone was more standoffish than usual.

"Are you sure?" She pressed him. "If you don't mind me saying so you don't look well."

He made to turn in his chair but the world around him once again started to spin – everything tilting strangely sideways and then flashing rapidly from one corner of his field of vision to the other. He could see Leuitant's Sulu and Chekcov sitting at their stations in front of him, but their figures were swimming unpleasantly, and he found himself unable to respond to her straight away.

When he didn't answer her Uhura got to her feet and began to make her way over to him. Spock could feel the vaguest hint of annoyance building – yet another undesirable human trait, which sat uncomfortably with him, and he fought to supress it. If he lost his temper with her she would know that something was definitely wrong. He felt her place her hand gently on his shoulder and his whole body instinctively tensed. He understood that human beings could find the physical contact of another comforting in times of great stress – they were born craving the physical interaction of their parents – and it was his hope that he'd been able to comfort the Captain in this way the day before. Spock would not normally have gone to the extent he had to console a man when there was a serious physical injury needing more immediate attention, but Jim had been bleeding to death, and offering him a comforting word whilst he'd done everything he could to try and stem the bleeding had been all he could do for his friend – this in itself had affected him more than he cared to admit. Vulcan's saw no value in open displays of affection and emotion. It was not in their nature to find the physical contact of another even vaguely pleasurable – there was no logical need for it, unless it was in the interests of procreation, and so Spock found Uhura's touch strange and uncomfortable.

Uhura evidently felt Spock's body tense beneath her hand, because she withdrew it immediately, but he could still feel her fingers hovering over his shoulder.

She frowned.

"Mr Spock, you're burning up!" She observed. It was true that the heat was radiating off him in waves. He felt warm – too warm in fact – and he knew that she didn't have to touch him to recognise that he had a fever.

"We Vulcan's have a higher body temperature than you human's Lieutenant, as I know you are aware." He told her, without looking up. He knew that this wasn't strictly true – the Vulcan sympathetic nervous system was a complex one, and one which wasn't so easily defined by a number on a thermometer. He knew that McCoy would ardently refute this statement if he were present – but even he found Vulcan physiology difficult to get his head around, and the fact that Spock's vital signs tended to change so dramatically, adjusting to help his body adapt to any given situation, made them even harder to read. His human genetics did impede this ability slightly, but for the most part it still enabled him to survive in even the most hostile of environments, and endure pain and trauma which would literally incapacitate or even kill a human being. As a result there were no medical text books in existence which accurately documented the Vulcan physiological structure or its functionality. Not even Doctor M'Benga, who was a specialist in this field, knew everything there was to know about the ship's second in command and science officer.

He could tell that Uhura too evidently wasn't convinced either, as still she didn't move from his side. Spock sighed in exasperation, knowing that he wasn't going to be able to escape her interrogation. After what had happened the day before he was aware of the fact that everyone had been keeping a very close eye on him. What had only been of mild annoyance to him before though had now turned into a genuine threat to his Vulcan reputation – betraying his human weaknesses.

"Are you sure Mr Spock?" She persisted in her questioning of him. "You're sweating." She observed – the beads of salty moisture now drying where they clung to the back of his neck, the undeniable manifestation of fever. He estimated his body temperature had risen to 104 degrees in the last hour – dangerously high for a human, but nothing he couldn't handle, if they would just leave him alone.

"Perhaps you should pay a visit to Doctor McCoy?" She suggested.

"Lieutenant, I have told you I am quite alright!" He snapped.

He wasn't sure how he managed it, but some inner fury propelled him to his feet as he turned around to face her. He kept a tight grip on the arm of the captain's chair, but this did very little to help him when the room began to spin even more violently, and it was as much as he could do to stop himself falling to his knees in front of her. Uhura starred at him in shock, for a moment lost for words and evidently taken aback by his outburst. Although not necessarily mild mannered – for it was not his disposition which kept him from acting on the impulse of his emotions – she had never seen him react in this way before.

They seemed to have entered into some strange stalemate. Although clearly weak Spock was evidently not prepared to stand down, but neither was she afraid to challenge a commanding officer who was clearly unfit for duty. He realised that she had Starfleet protocol on her side – that no service man or woman, no matter their rank, could be subpoenaed with a charge of mutiny if an officer was not fit to command, or carry out their full range of duties. This in itself would not have been enough to force Spock to admit defeat, but at that moment his body seemed to take it upon itself to make that decision for him, and everything went black. His legs gave way beneath him as he feinted.

Uhura gasped. Sulu and Chekov spun around in their seats as they heard him hit the floor, and as they immediately got up from their posts to go to the unconscious Vulcan's side – another two men quickly taking their place at the controls – she hurried back to her station to radio through to sickbay.

Meanwhile Nurse Chapel had answered Uhura's emergency call and made her way back to the intensive care unit. As she'd suspected when she entered Jim's room Doctor McCoy bore no indication that he had even noticed there'd been a call from the Bridge. He looked up at her as she entered, and to her it seemed as though he hadn't moved since she'd left him.

"Doctor McCoy you're needed on the Bridge, there's a medical emergency!" She wasted no time in letting him know what had happened, as she hurried over to where he was busying himself at the captain's bedside.

"Nurse Chapel, can Doctor M'Benga not deal with it?" He asked her. The captain's condition also appeared to still be the same, as serious as it had been the last time she'd checked on him, and judging by the deep worry lines, etching deep crevasses across McCoy's forehead, he still hadn't shown any signs of stabilising. It was a painful realisation – and one which was made all the more difficult with the knowledge that the sudden deterioration to Spock's condition too was about to make the situation all the more complicated. "I really don't want to have to leave Jim at the moment." He explained. "He'll be waking up soon and…"

"I'm afraid not Doctor." She said, cutting him off mid-sentence. The abruptness of her response seemed to have an immediate effect on McCoy, who stopped what he'd been doing and turned back around to face her – regarding her with a critical eye. The urgency in her voice evidently hadn't been completely lost on him.

"What's happened now?" He asked her, his own tone laden with concern, as a deep frown began to creep it's way across his forehead, weathered by worry and fatigue.

"It's a code blue medical emergency I'm afraid." She clarified. "Mr Spock has collapsed."


	8. Chapter 8

As McCoy made his way up to the Bridge from sickbay he hoped that Jim wouldn't regain consciousness whilst he was away tending to Spock. He had left instructions with Nurse Chapel – unnecessary and needless as it was to do so – not to leave him alone under any circumstances, but even so he wanted to be there when he woke up. Jim was likely to be disorientated and despite the strong painkillers he'd given him there was still a possibility that the post-op pain would be greater than anticipated. His body was strong – if it were not he could not have withstood the Orion's initial attack, let alone the resulting complications – but he'd just undergone a major operation and it was not yet known how he would respond to the procedure. To have been faced with the recovery from his damaged lung alone would have been a challenge in his weakened state, but the surgery to repair the rupture to his spleen had placed additional strain upon his body which Bones wasn't sure Jim could afford. He was currently on a long list of strong medications, some of which were to try and protect his organs from the powerful and potentially toxic effects of the drugs used to stabilise him and manage his pain, and the real test was going to be trying to wean him off them when the time came. Jim's lungs and kidneys were particularly vulnerable to failure, and Bones couldn't prepare for every eventuality.

The last thing he needed right now was Spock causing him any additional concern. He had every confidence that if he would just take time out to rest and give his body chance to recover he would be fine, but until he examined him he couldn't be sure.

Despite Nurse Chapel's insistence to the contrary he could have sent Doctor M'Benga in his place. The decision to delegate would have been quite satisfactory in Starfleet's eyes, and the doctor's specialist knowledge and time spent on Spock's home planet made him perfectly placed to deal with a woozy Vulcan – but McCoy wanted to make sure that his collapse wasn't due to anything serious or any developing complications from the stimulant or blood transfusion. The last time he'd checked Spock's blood counts had still been low, and this would certainly have made him more susceptible to suffering a feinting spell – McCoy could only hope that this was all this was. He'd done everything he medically could for Spock – he'd tried his best to impress upon him the importance that he rest, and had run a complete physical on him before he'd reluctantly discharged him from sickbay, but finding no justifiable cause to keep him there he'd had no choice but to declare him physically fit enough to return to his duty – his feelings as his friend had had no bearing on the matter.

When he reached the Bridge however he was relieved to discover that Spock had already started to regain consciousness. Uhura was standing over him, and appeared to be trying to get the Vulcan to remain where he was whilst the ship's Science Officer argued with every avenue of logic open to him that he was alright. As he approached McCoy noticed that the Vulcan's complexion appeared a few shades paler than usual and recognised it as a possible sign of anaemia. His blood volume had started to show signs of returning to normal now that the stimulant was out of his system, but blood volume didn't always equate to healthy cells. Being artificially provoked into producing such large quantities of blood meant that it was possible that the blood cells his body was now producing were malformed and ineffective – but only a blood test could measure how badly his bone marrow and lymphatic system were effected.

"Spock, what happened?" He demanded to know as the Vulcan finally managed to convince Uhura to let him to his feet.

"He feinted!" She told the doctor, standing aside to let him through, but her arms remained outstretched instinctively ready to catch Spock if he were to stumble again and fall. McCoy approached, tricorder in hand as he ran the tiny scanner over Spock – his initial readings showed some minor abnormalities, but nothing to cause him any immediate alarm. There was nothing to suggest that he was in any immediate danger – reassuring him that whatever it was which had led to the Vulcan's feinting spell it at least didn't appear to be anything too serious. Even so he tried not to let his mind wander back to Jim in sickbay – reminding himself that just because Spock's condition wasn't as serious as he'd first feared it might be that didn't make him any less in need of medical attention. Not knowing what was going on with the Captain and the realisation that the Vulcan's collapse was probably down to his own inability to heed medical advice did little to alleviate McCoy's growing feelings of irritability however. He was himself completely exhausted. He'd only managed to snatch a couple of hours of broken sleep the night before. Jim's condition, whilst now stable, was still critical, and the hardest thing for McCoy to have to accept – both as a surgeon and as the man's friend – was the fact that it wasn't yet apparent whether what he'd done for him would be enough to save Jim's life – nor would it be so for a while. Further bleeding still remained a very real danger.

McCoy was an excellent doctor and an extremely skilled surgeon – but any physician who boasted about the greatness of his medical skills was a liability to his profession and a danger to his patients. He'd treated both men and women who'd been both stronger and in much better condition than Jim was now, who'd eventually succumbed to their injuries and the truth was that Jim now faced a very uncertain future.

"Would everyone please stop fussing." Spock asked once he had recovered himself a little and was somewhat back to his normal self. "Doctor," He turned to address McCoy, "your concern is not needed. I am quite alright."

"To hell you are!" McCoy growled – rapidly losing patience with the Vulcan and his pig-headed stubborn mentality. "I knew there was something wrong with you this morning! I should have trusted my instincts rather than letting you bamboozle me with that damned logic of yours!"

"Doctor, from what I recall when you discharged me from sickbay my stats were perfect!" Spock responded – McCoy felt himself bristle.

"No Spock, not perfect!" He exclaimed, determined to set him straight on the matter. "Satisfactory!"

He checked the readings on his tricorder again – the tiny machine had continued to take readings whilst they'd been talking and the doctor now had a much better understanding of how Spock's body had continued to respond to the stimulant, even now that it was out of his system. Some of the new blood cells his body had produced since the transfusion were indeed malformed, resulting in a form an anaemia McCoy was unfamiliar with. The blood cells were small and he was deficient in the copper required to produce the healthy cells needed to absorb and transport sufficient amounts of oxygen to his vital organs. It was little wonder that he'd feinted.

His metabolism was virtually non-existent – which wasn't in itself unusual for Spock – but his heartrate was also unusually fast and his blood pressure was on the high side. Vulcan physiology was complicated and not always easy to understand or predict, but Spock was half human, making him even more complex. It was possible that given adequate rest and time his body could recover itself, but he might also require a temporary course of drugs to lower his heart rate and stabilise his blood pressure. McCoy was concerned about the long-term effects on his body if they were unable to bring his blood pressure down – it could damage his blood vessels, heart, brain and kidneys, not to mention any number of other as yet unknown complications.

McCoy sighed – he now had two very sick senior officers on his hands, one seriously so though and he had to get back to sickbay soon – but Spock was in no fit state to continue with his duties.

"Mr Spock, I'm declaring you unfit for duty." He told him, and waited for the Vulcan's inevitable protests.

"I can assure you doctor, I am quite alright." He continued to stubbornly persist with his charade, echoing his words to McCoy from earlier, but McCoy had had enough, and he was willing to use every shred of authority afforded to him to get Spock to rest – which under the circumstances vastly outweighed the Vulcan's.

"It's either sickbay or your own quarters Spock." He declared unwaveringly. "I won't accept any arguments!"

Spock raised an eyebrow, looking at the doctor quizzically and regarding him with a vague air of intrigue. Ever logical as always he realised that there was no reasonable argument left open to him, but McCoy would have still been happier if he hadn't given in quite so easily.

"Well, if you must insist doctor, I think I'd prefer my own quarters." Spock responded, and as he finally relented the doctor noticed that his forehead was spotted with tiny beads of sweat – it was a sign that he may also be developing a fever, and he made a mental note to ask Doctor M'Benga to keep an eye on it for him when he returned to sickbay.

"Can you walk? Or do I need to call a nurse to assist you?" McCoy asked him, with only a slight bite of sarcasm to his tone. He couldn't help the angry edge which crept into his voice, he was worried and this often manifested itself as short-temperedness for many people, but when he spoke again his tone was somewhat softer and more sympathetic to Spock's situation.

"You still look a little unsteady on you feet." He observed.

"That won't be necessary, I am quite capable." Spock assured him.

"I will make sure he gets there doctor."

Everyone turned abruptly to the sound of the female voice which had suddenly startled them to see Amanda standing on the platform above. She'd made her entrance to silently that no one had even heard the lift doors open. Her eyes were wide and glistened brilliantly brown with unshed tears. McCoy wondered for how long she'd been there and smiled kindly up at her.

"Mother? What are you doing here?" Spock asked her, but where most humans would have appeared surprised or even somewhat grateful or relieved for the comforting presence of the women who'd given birth to and nurtured them the Vulcan's tone remained even, with not even the slightest trace of emotion.

"One of the nurses told me you'd feinted." She explained, taking a step forward, one arm outstretched towards her son with concern. "I was worried."

There was a look of hurt in her eyes, and McCoy realised that despite the fact she'd married a Vulcan, spent most of her adult life living on Vulcan and had given birth to a half Vulcan she still couldn't fully comprehend why concepts such as love and emotional intelligence seemed so foreign to them as a race. McCoy couldn't help but admire her strength – to be able to give her heart so wholly to a man who could never return her affections, and to love a son who could never bring himself to tell her he loved her – this was a heartbreak she shouldered every day of her life, and she did so with such grace and humility. It was a most intriguing and endearing trait of hers, but whether it could also be considered a character flaw McCoy couldn't work out.

"Your son will be fine Mrs Sarek." He tried to reassure her. "He just needs to get some rest." He cast a sideways glance in Spock's direction. "The stimulant used during the blood transfusion to your husband can have some pretty nasty side effects and as we discussed before the surgery puts the body under an immense amount of strain and pressure, but recent tests show that your son's condition is very much improved since the procedure."

"I'm very happy to hear it doctor." Spock remarked, his own tone now dripping with sarcasm. "But I would appreciate you not discussing my medical status in the presence of the entire Bridge crew."

"I wouldn't have to if you'd simply listened to my advice in the first place you green blooded hobgoblin!" McCoy growled at him ill-temperedly in response. "You aught to be in bed!" The scowl he aimed in the direction of the Vulcan as he said this didn't escape anyone's notice either.

"But what about Sarek?" Amanda asked as she descended the few steps and made her way over towards the small group, coming to a halt beside her son. She extended a hand towards him, her eyes conveying a sadness brought on by all the worry of the past couple of days – but seeing that he did not appreciate the gesture, and that her maternal instinct and natural concern might be of embarrassment to him, she quickly withdrew it again. McCoy suspected that her years spent on Vulcan had led her to develop a degree of telepathy which enabled her to read the undercurrent of her husband's and son's reactions despite their lack of body language.

"Doctor M'Benga will be discharging him later this afternoon." She continued, in reference to her husband. "He's resting now, but I wanted to ask you Doctor McCoy, don't you think it might be too soon? It was only yesterday that he had major heart surgery!"

"Well, your husband's recovery has been nothing short of miraculous," McCoy considered with a smile, "and as far as experience of Vulcan physiology goes Doctor M'Benga's far surpasses my own." He told her. "If he thinks he's ready then I trust his judgement."

She regarded him for a moment and McCoy placed his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. She was used to being treated differently because of her race – not even her marriage to a Vulcan held in such high regard as Sarek could protect her from the scorn and patronising stares of the other Vulcans. She had an intellect of her own though, she had once been a teacher, and she could sense when she was being condescended to. There was no trace of a lie or pitty in McCoy's eyes however. He'd made no attempt to sugar coat or soften the blow of the situation. He'd spoken to her as an equal, involving her in all decision making surrounding her husband's health, and had explained the risks and possible outcomes to her in all their grim reality. She knew that she could trust him to tell her the truth.

"Thank you." She nodded, and smiled.

"If anyone needs me I'll be in my cabin." Spock remarked. "Mr Sulu call Mr Scott to the Bridge." He instructed the helmsman, already beginning to leave when his mother turned to follow. As she did McCoy reached out a hand, and caught her gently by the arm.

"He'll need a blood test to find out the cause of his feinting spell," He explained to her, indicating Spock with a sideways glance towards where he was now standing at the top of the stairs, "but I'll send Doctor M'Benga in my place once he's settled. Try not to let him leave his room if you can, but if he does you have my permission to restrain him." He chuckled.

Amanda looked to her son and smiled, before turning back to McCoy.

"Oh, don't worry doctor, I have my own ways of making sure my son does as he's told." She whispered with a low laugh, making sure she was out of earshot of Spock, before following after her son. McCoy made sure that Spock was completely clear of the Bridge before bidding his own hasty exit, and heading back to sickbay to check on Jim.


End file.
